Around 2 weeks ago the NFL draft began with the first round starting on Thursday, April 24, 2025. To get drafted by an NFL team, a team personnel, usually the general manager, will call the player to select and congratulate them. This year for the first time ever, many draft prospects were prank called and falsely informed that they were being drafted. Some notable players that were pranked include: Shedur Sanders and Ashton Jeanty.
The most infamous prank call was the one to Shedur Sanders. After Shedur fell to day 2 of the draft, he received a fake call from a person pretending to be the general manager of the New Orleans Saints, Mickey Loomis. A video was leaked of the situation where the caller told Sanders: “We’re going to take you with our next pick, man, but you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer, man. Sorry about that” (ESPN).
Shedur was confused due to the fact he had a second phone just for the draft with only 30 phone numbers for every NFL team, and this was the phone on which he received the call. A couple of days later, a video surfaced of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator, Jeff Ulbrich’s son, Jax, making the call. Apparently Jeff Ulbrich left the phone number on his open Ipad and Jax saw it when visiting home and wrote it down. The Falcons were issued a $250,000 fine and Jeff Ulbrich was issued a $100,000 fine.
In a recent podcast interview, Ashton Jeanty also reported that he was called on draft night. The call came shortly after getting drafted with the 6th pick by the Las Vegas Raiders. Ashton revealed that: “Some dude called me who was like, ‘Yeah… we just traded with the Raiders, and you’re coming to the Cowboys”(Fox News). Ashton knew instantly that it was a prank and said: “I just hung up, bro. I was like, ‘Come on, bro’”(Fox News). The caller has yet to be identified.
These 2 incidents are just a few of many. Other players that have revealed they have gotten prank calls are Abdul Carter, Kyle McCord, Isaiah Bond, Tyler Warren, Josh Conerly, and Chase Lundt. The NFL is looking into these calls and have identified the call made to Shedur is unrelated to the other prank calls.