When the call arrives in the Broncos’ huddle, wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders smiles. He’s suddenly sent back to 2004 in Bellville, Texas, carrying the ball out of the backfield as a high school senior.
Nine NFL seasons under his belt and counting, Sanders is again called upon to revive those instincts as a Broncos wide receiver on designed end-around runs. The basics: Sanders lines up as a lone wideout on the edge and moves on slow inside motion just before quarterback Case Keenum receives the snap under center. Sanders, sprinting parallel with the line of scrimmage, darts behind running back Royce Freeman in play-action before receiving the Keenum pitch the opposite direction.
Sanders took one 27 yards to the house during the preseason at Washington. He scored a touchdown again in Baltimore from 35 yards out, and one week later, sprinted 18 yards to move the chains against Kansas City.
“You’ve got to be a running back, pretty much,” Sanders said. “When Bill (Musgrave) dials it up, itap at the perfect time when the defense is tired. I’m moving around, running a lot of motions and doing a lot of fake-goes, so then they don’t know when itap coming. Then, we just hit them with it. We’ve had a lot of success with it.”
Sanders gets the glory. But the art of the end-around run requires a complete team effort. Fullback Andy Janovich served as the lead blocker on both regular season runs for Sanders this year. Rookie Courtland Sutton made the goal-line stuff that allowed Sanders in the Ravens’ end zone. And fellow wide receiver Demaryius Thomas paved the way against the Chiefs.
“Any time I can get the ball in my hands, I love it, and I’ve got one of the best blockers in the NFL leading the pack in Andy Janovich,” Sanders said. “On the outside, I usually have Courtland and Demaryius running their guys off and getting involved in blocking. Itap easy for me. All I’ve got to do is turn on the jets.”
It took Sanders 118 NFL games to record his first career rushing touchdown on that rainy afternoon in Baltimore.
His Broncos usage through four games suggests more are on the horizon, beginning with the Jets on Sunday.
“For a wide receiver, itap kind of hard to get a rushing touchdown,” Sanders said, and then smiled. “I’ll take it, though.”
