When you're a first-team All-Pro, you're doing something right. Amon-Ra St. Brown can do no wrong. He showed up three years ago in Detroit as a relative nobody, and starred in a Netflix show this summer. He memorized the names of the 16 receivers drafted before him, and has more catches than all of them. He made $1 million a year on his first NFL contract, and will make $30 million a year on his next one.
He has worked, and worked, his way to the top. So as he enters year four with the Lions, "I'm gonna keep doing what I do," St. Brown said Wednesday after the first practice of training camp.
"For me, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it," he said.
St. Brown ain't broke. He just signed a four-year, $120 million extension with the Lions that very briefly made him the highest-paid receiver in the NFL. He earned every penny, one of the game's best players at a premium position, one of Detroit's dirtiest workers on a team built on grit, one of the faces of a franchise -- maybe the face -- that's on a climb of its own.
Don't mistake St. Brown for satisfied. He just isn't going to break his game down and rebuild it. He had the second most catches in the NFL last season, for the third most yards. He led the league in yards after catch. Could he be more of a threat downfield? Sure, but that's not really his job. He dominates everywhere else, to the point that he and Jared Goff are nearly unstoppable. When Goff threw short or intermediate passes to St. Brown last season, he had a rating of 114.5.
Jameson Williams has the skillset to gash defenses, as he did Wednesday when he hauled in a bomb from Jared Goff and left everyone in the dust. St. Brown stabs them, and twists the knife. His offseason was about sharpening his repertoire.
"It’s not like I just focus on one particular aspect of my game. I do everything," he said. "I work on my releases, top of the break, on the track three days a week, making sure I’m running enough in the weight room, making sure I’m strong. Obviously there’s things I might work on more, but I like to do it all."
St. Brown sets statistical goals for himself each year. He met them last year in the season finale, then chirped afterward, "I don’t know how many 1,500-yard receivers with 10 touchdowns didn’t make the Pro Bowl. I guess I gotta look that up to see." He had been snubbed the week prior, only to be named an All-Pro the next week alongside Tyreek Hill and CeeDee Lamb -- the much higher honor. Per usual, St. Brown is keeping his goals this year to himself.
"Hopefully at the end of the year I can see where I stacked up and what I said I would do," he said.
The Lions aren't afraid to say their goals out loud. As St. Brown put it, "I can truthfully say this year, it’s not even the playoffs. It’s not the No. 1 seed. It’s the Super Bowl. And I feel like everyone in the room, we all feel the same way." As they should, based on the roster they've built. St. Brown is one of the main pillars, getting sturdier each year.
"For me, I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing," he said. "From the start, I told you guys consistency is everything for me. That’s the goal every day coming into the building and out on the field, is being that same guy and producing."
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