If the Falcons looked different last Sunday in demolishing the Cardinals to pull out of a hideous skid, maybe Mohamed Sanu saw it coming.
He suggested a few days before the 40-14 wipeout in Mercedes-Benz Stadium that he and his teammates needed to stop treating their jobs like jobs. It sure looked like everybody had a good time as the Falcons snapped a five-game losing streak.
“I think we need to just go out there and have fun. I feel like we lost sight of that,” the Falcons wide receiver told reporters last week. “When you love doing something, love playing it, you’ve got to have fun doing that, and I feel like we lost sight of that a little bit.
“We were pressing instead of just doing what we do . . . everybody was trying to do too much instead of doing their job. Just do your part.”
The Falcons (5-9) smashed the Cardinals, and now they’ve got a chance to climb into second place in the NFC South by season’s end with games Sunday at Carolina (6-8) and Dec. 30 Bay at Tampa Bay (5-9).
Sanu will do his parts in whatever happens.
He caught three passes for 30 yards and rushed once for 11 yards as the Falcons snapped their skid.
The seventh-year pro out of Rutgers University is within range of career highs in several categories. With 54 receptions for 667 yards and three touchdowns, Sanu is in sight of the 67 catches he made last year, the 790 receiving yards he tallied for the Bengals in 2014, and the five touchdown receptions he had in ’14 and then in ’16 in his first season with the Falcons.
He might be further along if not for a sore hip that bothered him for several weeks in the middle of the season, causing him to miss several practices.
“I thought in the tough stretch, because he had the hip injury earlier, to fight through that ‘I’m playing, I’m going’ when that was difficult, I thought he battled through it and I think that goes to show where his mental toughness is, and his mindset,” head coach Dan Quinn said.
Sanu’s mindset is to do almost everything with force. When he blocks, he does it hard. When the 6-foot-2, 215-pounder catches a ball with defenders in his way, he’ll go at them.
“On his catch-and-run plays there’s usually a statement of a finish. As a player, almost like a running back, you’re letting somebody know and it doesn’t always happen at receiver, but it just so happens that we have two of them that will let you know at the end of the catch. Julio (Jones) and Mo will let you know,” Quinn said.
“I like when they drop that shoulder and finish a play downhill. That’s not true with all receivers, and I don’t want that to be true with all receivers. But for the big guys, that definitely means something.”
Sanu has a unique skill set. His only pass attempt this season went incomplete when he overthrew Jones deep Dec. 2 against the Ravens to break a personal streak of note, but the former high school quarterback’s professional passing numbers are staggering.
For his NFL career, the former college quarterback has completed 6 of 7 passes for 228 yards and five touchdowns. Those are pretty good numbers, including a 51-yard touchdown to Jones last season.
His high school coach isn’t surprised by anything Sanu does.
Rick Mantz had him at South Brunswick (N.J.) High School, and he was constantly impressed.
“His athleticism was just unbelievable,” Mantz told the New Jersey Star-Ledger. “He'd screw around in practice and throw the ball 70 yards on a rope. He was our punter. He'd kick off. One day he was at track practice, just kind of screwing around, and said, 'Coach, can I throw the javelin?'
“Our top guy, who had a pretty good arm, had gotten hurt and wasn't going to compete. So, Mo picks up the javelin -- I kid you not -- and he broke the school record in his first day. It was unbelievable, the kid could do anything. He'd play volleyball the tail end of his junior year just because it was a challenge for him. He just annihilated the ball. It was mind-boggling.”
For all of his skills, Sanu isn’t much of a rah-rah guy in the locker room, although he’ll speak up.
“I try not to talk as much. I try to use my energy, how I practice and prepare,” he said. “I let my personality show, and if there’s times somebody needs somebody to talk to, I’ll talk. But I let my personality show. ...
“I always look at it as if you have to find motivation for something, you shouldn’t be doing it.”
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