Mohamed Sanu was a well-regarded prospect coming into the draft, but not so highly regarded that we thought we’d be writing three posts about him before the weekend was out.
Thanks to a prank phone call, that’s just what we’re doing. Sanu was the victim of a prankster -- a fellow Rutgers student apparently -- who told him he would be drafted by the Bengals during the first round on Thursday night. He wasn’t their pick, it was guard Kevin Zeitler of Wisconsin, and the story spread like wildfire on Friday. It wound up with a happy ending when the Bengals called him on Friday night to make him the 82nd overall choice.
“I said, ‘Hey Mo, it’s James Urban. You want to be a Bengal -- this time, for real?’” receivers coach James Urban told the Associated Press.
Sanu said that he’s “hysterically laughing” about the whole thing right now which is likely a 180 degree change from his reaction when he realized the call on Thursday wasn’t legitimate. If Sanu turns out to be the complement to A.J. Green that the Bengals hope he can be, the team will likely be cackling right alongside him for years to come.