“All the hard work flashed before my eyes.”

“I remembered all the times my mom drove me to football practice.”

“Riding with my dad in the car after all my games.”

All of these would be your usual, cliche answers to the question that was posed to Broncos star wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders on Wednesday afternoon: What came to your mind when you were drafted?

Sanders, though, wasn’t in the mood for cliches, he felt like spitting some good ol’ truth.

“When that check gon’ hit my bank account,” he said with an ear to ear grin. “If you want to be serious.”

Then, as to not spoil the tradition of dropping cliches, he was kind enough to give a more traditional answer.

“I was just blessed,” he said. “I was honored to be drafted in the third round coming from a small school like SMU. It was everything. To me, going in the third round or second round was a first-round tag for me coming out of SMU. It just showed all the hard work and dedication to be able to call my grandma and mom to say, ‘Look, we have an opportunity of a lifetime. We’re just capitalizing on it.’ To all those guys, it’s going to be a big day for the families tomorrow. A lot of tears, and it should be, because it’s a great day.”

But in the end, the question was more about when that check actually did come in.

“I can’t even remember,” Sander said with a laugh. “I had a car before it hit the bank.”