FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — As I was preparing for my one-on-one interview with Jeff Ulbrich Monday morning, I knew my final question was the most important. It was the one that mattered the most to the fan base, but particularly the ones who didn't agree with his hire as defensive coordinator in the first place.
The moment I started prepping the "Falcons announce Jeff Ulbrich as next defensive coordinator" article about 10 days ago, I knew how the news would be received when I hit publish.
"Raheem Morris only hires his buddies."
"Didn't we try this already?"
"Hello. 2020 called and it would like its coaching staff back."
"A real rinse and repeat situation we've got going on here, huh?"
And yes, all of these are real sentences tweeted at me in the first five minutes this hire was made official.
It was this overwhelming response to the news that formulated my final question to Ulbrich Monday. The question was simple in theory, but more difficult to answer in practice...
There is a passionate factor of the fan base that has reservations about this hire. It doesn't happen very often that a coach returns to a place after less than five years away to become the official title holder of a position he held in the interim following the dismissal of a head coach and general manager. What was his message be to the fans who felt this way?
I liked his answer.
"Ultimately, whatever I am going to say is going to be words," Ulbrich began. "We have to go out there and demonstrate who we are and what we're going to be about. I'd say that myself and Raheem both, that time that we left was so critical and in that time there was so much growth. I am not the same coach that I was four years ago. Not even close. And I'm not just talking scheme, I'm talking about the way to built a defensive roster, the way to select players, the way to develop players, and scheme, too.
"I would like (the fans) to know it's a different human being. It really is in a lot of ways. Some of my base fundamentals and the way in which I live by and coach by, they're still strong and are the same in some ways. But there has been so much growth in so many other ways."
This answer played off of a different question I asked earlier in the interview about the difference between the man who sat before me in Ticketmaster Studios that morning with the man I interviewed weekly on Zoom calls during the pandemic in 2020. He joked: Besides the added gray hairs? Experience, and a lot of it.
Ulbrich said he was very fortunate to work alongside "one of the brightest defensive minds" in the game in Robert Saleh. More than that, though, it was Saleh's approach to letting Ulbrich run the unit, even as a defensive-minded head coach, that changed Ulbrich the most.
"After the first year, he really stepped away," Ulbrich said. "He'd have suggestions. Game plans on game day here and there. But he absolutely let me run with it. I am just so fortunate for that because that doesn't happen very often, to have a defensive head coach or offensive head coach allow their coordinator to run things independently of them."
The stats are what they are in regards to those years of an Ulbrich-led defense in New York — and they were pretty dang good. It was arguably the one unit Saleh didn't have to worry about in 2022 or 2023. Ulbrich coached a top-5 group, and as he said (and Saleh has said, too) it was his group to control.
I bring this up to ultimately say this: Give Ulbrich the opportunity to show you what he's got as a defensive play caller.
For all of us, don't we change as time in this life extends? Isn't that the point of being human? If I can get personal for a second, I have a birthday coming up on Thursday, and upon reflecting, heck, I know I am not the same person I was four years ago. Not even close.
So, before you judge Ulbrich and the Falcons' decision to bring him on, maybe give him the opportunity to prove you right or wrong. The circumstances in which he returns to Atlanta are vastly different. The coach who returns is, too. Why not at least give him a chance to show that these two things are true?
And if it doesn't work out? At that point, you can say, "I told you so." But don't write him off before he's ever even had a chance to write this new chapter of his career.
Take a look as new defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich arrives at the Atlanta Falcons facility in Flowery Branch.

Photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on his first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Jay Bendlin/Atlanta Flacons)

Scenes from Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's press conference at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Behind the Scenes photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on his first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Jay Bendlin/Atlanta Flacons)

Behind the Scenes photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Scenes from Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's press conference at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Behind the Scenes photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on his first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Jay Bendlin/Atlanta Flacons)

Photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on his first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Jay Bendlin/Atlanta Flacons)

Scenes from Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's press conference at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Behind the Scenes photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Shanna Lockwood/Atlanta Flacons)

Photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on his first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Jay Bendlin/Atlanta Flacons)

Photos of Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on his first day at the Atlanta Falcons Training Facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. on Monday, January 27, 2025. (Photo by Jay Bendlin/Atlanta Flacons)