The wife of a coach for the Atlanta Falcons NFL team has died after a battle with cancer. Cristina Ulbrich, who first met her husband, defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich in 1997 while he was recruiting at the University of Hawaii, died at the age of 48 on Thursday. Jeff, who spent four years with the New York Jets before joining the Falcons in 2025, is understood to have been absent from training sessions for much of the week. The team paid tribute to Cristina in a statement released Friday. “She was a constant source of love and support to Jeff, their family, and the broader Falcons community,” they said. Arthur Blank, who owns the team, shared a similarly touching tribute. “It was always evident how deeply Cristina loved her family and how fiercely she supported them,” he said. “She faced every challenge with extraordinary courage, strength and grace, inspiring so many through the way she lived and the way she fought.”
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