Photo credit: First Take
By Brandon Contes on

Stephen A. Smith knows how to reprimand Jeff Ulbrich’s son for prank calling Shedeur Sanders: a good ol’ ass whooping.

Shedeur Sanders falling all the way to the fifth round was undoubtedly the biggest story of the 2025 NFL Draft. And one of the side shows to Sanders falling was video of him being prank-called by two people impersonating New Orleans Saints’ GM Mickey Loomis claiming they were going to select the quarterback.

After some speculation that Jax Ulbrich may have been one of the culprits, the 21-year-old son of Atlanta Falcons’ defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich admitted he took part in prank calling Sanders. Ulbrich already issued an apology for the prank that has been almost universally ridiculed, but Smith wants a bigger punishment.

“Where is the picture of the kid?” Smith asked Monday morning on First Take. “See, it’s not criminal. But it’s unethical, it’s classless, it’s amoral to some degree. And I’d like to see the face of that kid. Because sometimes you need to be embarrassed. That’s what needs to happen to you.”


Here you go. Smith may not have seen it, but photos of Jax Ulbrich have already been viewed by tens of millions of people on social media.


But apologizing publicly, calling Sanders to admit the mistake, and having his picture plastered all over the internet still wasn’t enough for Smith.

“To Jeff Ulbrich, I sincerely hope he whipped his kid’s ass,” Smith ranted. “That’s an ass whipping. That is a required ass whipping.”

Smith made sure to note it would be unfair to place any blame on Ulbrich for what his son did, and went on to rip the 21-year-old college student for not thinking about the potential damage this could have done to his father’s NFL coaching career.

“Your dad could have lost his job! And because you want to prank somebody and be cruel and insensitive knowing what Shedeur must have been going through, you would be some privileged little brat that would do something like that,” Smith continued. “You should be ashamed of yourself. And you should have your ass whipped.”

It was a dumb prank. But the best thing that came from it won’t be Jax Ulbrich potentially getting spanked by his dad. It was the fact that everyone got to see Shedeur Sanders handle it with such maturity.

Sanders could have used this as a woe is me moment. He could have called for Ulbrich to get his ass whipped or made this into a bigger deal than it needed to be. But in a week where Sanders had his character questioned by NFL teams, he accepted Ulbrich’s apology and moved on, saying, “everybody does childish things here and there.”

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com

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