-
Eric Woodyard, ESPN
DETROIT — When Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell announced his 2024 team captains, he gave each player the opportunity to speak to the group.
He listed off the names: Linebacker Alex Anzalone. Special teams standout Jalen Reeves-Maybin. Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson. Quarterback Jared Goff. Offensive tackle Penei Sewell … and finally, wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Standing in front of his Lions teammates, St. Brown — a 2021 fourth-round pick who has worked himself into one of the NFL’s best receivers — shared his goal for the season.
“Whatever happens is gonna happen throughout the year, but I want to be the hardest practicing team, the best practicing team in the league,” St. Brown told the group. “Because at the end of the day, if you practice hard, the games are gonna take care of itself.”
In the four years since being drafted, St. Brown’s game has spoken loudly. In that span, he ranks third in receptions (391), seventh in receiving yards (4,408), ninth in receiving touchdowns (30) and is among the leaders in receptions per game (6.41). But his work ethic and intensity have earned him his place in Detroit and become the stuff of legend among teammates and coaches.
In addition to demanding perfection on the practice field, he maintains a daily routine of catching 202 passes from the Jugs machine, completing 200 situps and juggling and catching a tennis ball 500 times off a wall to improve his hand-eye coordination. His serious approach, competitiveness and production on the field have made him one of the franchise’s foundational players and one quarterback Jared Goff likened to an all-time great.
“The way I compare him to Aaron [Donald] is just that when he steps on that grass, he’s not messing around,” Goff told ESPN. Donald, a three-time defensive player of the year, was a teammate of Goff’s for five seasons with the Los Angeles Rams. “There’s no funny business. We’re out there to work and Aaron was that same way.
“In the locker room, we have fun, and we joke around, and Aaron was that way, too, but there was a clear flip that switched when we get between the white lines, and I think I see that with him every day.”
Before the Lions (11-1) head into their Thursday night matchup against the Green Bay Packers (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video), here are four more stories that shed light on the Lions’ star receiver.
THE MINDSET THAT has made St. Brown one of the NFL’s best wideouts was on display at the two-day Sound Mind Sound Body football camp in Detroit in 2014.
Word of St. Brown’s attendance traveled fast among the nearly 1,000 athletes participating that summer. Then an eighth grader, St. Brown had traveled from California along with older brothers Equanimeous and Osiris. “It’s very rare that you get a kid from California that’ll fly all the way to Detroit just to camp with some kids,” camp founder Curtis Blackwell said. “So, everybody was trying to figure out who he was. That was pretty dope.”
Once on the field, the youngest St. Brown brother dominated. He was so good against the middle school competition that organizers quickly elevated him to the high school group, which included current Lions wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones, who was a year older.
Though he was competing against older and bigger players, his advanced knowledge of route running and catching ability wowed the camp and caught the attention of some of college football’s top coaches — such as Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, Michigan’s Brady Hoke and Michigan State’s Mark D’Antonio — who were in attendance. He even drew media attention from recruiting writer Allen Trieu of 247Sports, who’d rarely paid attention to middle schoolers.
“[He] was probably the most elite receiver I’d guarded that young,” said Xavier Goldsmith, an attendee at the camp who now works as a player personnel analyst at the University of Utah. “He already understood everything. He was ahead of his time.”
But it was during one particular one-on-one drill against a 10th grader that St. Brown displayed the mentality that would later see him go from fourth-round pick to All-Pro and a Lions team captain.
“He did a route, and it got kind of chippy and Amon-Ra ran to the kid and was like, ‘Boy, I will f—ing break you,'” recalled St. Brown’s longtime trainer, Jeff Johnson, who was also in attendance. “I didn’t understand. I thought he would say, ‘I will f’n beat you up. Or … I don’t know. But the kid as an eighth grader said, ‘I will f’n break you.’
“That was like, ‘Woah, this dude is a monster for real.'”
Before landing in Detroit, St. Brown had been advised by his father, John Brown, to make the most of his opportunity. Brown, a former two-time Mr. Universe and three-time Mr. World, trained his sons to be ready to perform on the biggest stages.
“My dad was like, ‘Make sure you get as many reps as you can in one-one-ones because that’s what everyone’s watching.’ So, I would get a rep in, I’d catch the ball literally, throw it back and I’d walk back and I’d cut everyone back in line and be the first one ready to go again,” St. Brown said. “So, I was cutting dudes in line, talking s—, because that’s just how I was, and it was one rep, I was just talking one s— and told the dude I’d break him.”
Motivational speaker Eric Thomas, a native of Detroit, was one of the marquee guests at that 2014 camp. His message to the attendees that year was about how “everyone wants to be a beast until it’s time to do what real beasts do.”
He said St. Brown took it to heart.
“Look at St. Brown being [at the camp], you could tell he was one of those kids that eats stuff up,” Thomas said. “He’s not one of the kids who are like, ‘I can’t wait for [the speaker] to finish talking’ and move on, or was in there joking with his friends. From the time he was young, he was locked in.”
LARRY BENJAMIN DIDN’T want to spend his final days in a hospice facility last winter.
Instead, Benjamin — who was suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — wanted to rest at home.
So, his daughter-in-law, Debra Benjamin, temporarily relocated from her family’s home in Jacksonville, North Carolina, to his Saginaw, Michigan, residence to assist as his full-time caregiver.
In January, the 83-year-old made an odd request. The lifelong Lions fan asked Debra to spray his hair Honolulu blue to match St. Brown, who had similarly changed his hair color ahead of Detroit’s first playoff appearance since 2016.
Shortly after, Benjamin’s son Jeff posted an image of his father, in his new blue hair, while receiving hospice care at home.
He tagged St. Brown.
“Dying the whole hair and seeing how people reacted was cool. I didn’t think it was going to be that big, I was just doing it for fun basically,” St. Brown said. “And the people really enjoyed it, they were behind it. The fans were, the city was. And it was awesome to see someone in hospice, dying his hair. He didn’t know how much time he had left to live and all he cared about was Lions football and us being in the playoffs.”
Days after helping Detroit to its first playoff win since Jan. 5, 1992 — a 24-23 victory over the Rams in the NFC wild-card round — St. Brown reached out to Larry Benjamin via FaceTime and shipped an autographed jersey to “Larry The Man,” with a personal message to “KEEP BEING A BEAST.”
“It meant a lot to my dad and that made it mean a lot to me,” Jeff Benjamin said. “And it was just nice to see that kind of thing happen. To me, it felt like the whole Lions organization was right there, saying, ‘Hey, man, we don’t know what we can do for you medically, but we certainly want to show you how much we appreciate what you’re doing here and how much you appreciate how hard we’re working.’ It was powerful.”
Benjamin died in his sleep on March 10. But St. Brown’s gesture had made him a local celebrity.
For the Benjamin family, the interaction was personal and something they’ll never forget. They’ve rallied around their father’s love of the Lions. They started their own texting group to communicate during the games, despite being spread all over the country.
“What it did, really, for the whole family was it made a sad situation a little glimmer of light,” Debra said. “And it seemed very genuine. Some people might say, ‘It’s a photo-op, it’s a publicity stunt,’ but no, St. Brown seemed like a very genuine, grateful person and thankful for the support of his fans.”
ST. BROWN WAS upset.
It was Day 3 of the 2021 NFL draft and the former USC star couldn’t fathom how far he’d slipped.
Surrounded by members of his inner circle at a family friend’s home in California, he vented to his brother Equanimeous, then a member of the Green Bay Packers. Even though he was eager to be drafted, his true feelings about one team came out.
“If there’s one team I don’t want to go to, that’s the Lions,” he told his older brother. “Just please, I don’t want to go to the Lions.”
Shortly after, he received a call from a Detroit area code. It was newly hired Lions general manager Brad Holmes telling him that they would take him as the 112th overall selection.
Although thankful the wait was over, St. Brown wasn’t overjoyed.
“I’m from Southern California, and Detroit, they didn’t win any games,” St. Brown said last spring. “They weren’t ever shown on TV. It’s not a team I really watched, besides Megatron (former Lions receiver Calvin Johnson). I wasn’t really tuned into Detroit football.”
Equanimeous told ESPN in 2021 that he didn’t want him to go join the Lions either but had been optimistic about Amon-Ra’s opportunity to contribute immediately.
Detroit was coming off a 5-11 season and had a new coach in Dan Campbell and GM in Holmes. They had a laundry list of needs, notably at wide receiver.
“I don’t see that as an organization that I want him to go to, but they need receivers, so hopefully he’ll go out there and play,” Equanimeous said at the time. “You can’t choose what team you go to, but as a Packer, I’d rather him come to us.”
The rest is Lions history. With Amon-Ra playing a key role, the Lions went from a 3-13-1 record in 2021, to 9-8 in 2022, to 12-5 last season, which ended with their second appearance in the NFC title game — something that hadn’t happened since the 1991 season.
Three years after that awkward draft day, on the eve of the 2024 draft, St. Brown agreed to a four-year, $120 million extension after becoming the third wide receiver in franchise history to receive first-team All-Pro honors.
In a full circle moment, he now says he wants to finish his career in the Motor City.
“I was happy, but I was unhappy at the same time,” St. Brown said. “… But looking back on it, it’s probably [for] the best. I don’t think there’s another team where I could’ve done what I’ve done here with the people that are around me.
“My coaches, my teammates, the fans, the city. Just the whole story of how everything has been going and playing so far. I would pay for this if I could, to have this whole thing happen again, because it’s a perfect story.”
BACKING DOWN IS never an option for St. Brown.
On the first day of padded practices ahead of his rookie season, things got chippy between St. Brown and first-year cornerback Ifeatu Melifonwu during a special teams drill.
The goal of the drill was simple: St. Brown was supposed to block Melifonwu during a kickoff. Melifonwu wasn’t supposed to let him.
It was one-on-one.
“You can either try to go around him or go through him. And we just hit each other, stuck each other,” Melifonwu said. “And after that, s— got aggressive.”
After the drill, Melifonwu punched St. Brown. St. Brown retaliated with a blow of his own and a fight ensued. But when it was over, a newfound respect was reached among the teammates.
“It was definitely punches thrown, but we both had our helmets on so nothing really happened for real,” Melifonwu told ESPN in October. “I’m not sure how many guys he’s actually got into a fight with. So at least he knows I’m not backing down. S—, if he wants to scrap right now, we can.”
Three years later, St. Brown was in the middle of another scuffle, this time during a joint practice with the New York Giants in New Jersey.
On the second play of live drills, St. Brown mixed it up with members of the Giants’ defense after catching a pass from Goff. Several punches were thrown in the melee but again, St. Brown didn’t flinch, despite being surrounded by several members of the Giants.
“That’s just the way I am. I’m a competitor at the end of the day and I’m going to compete and sometimes that happens when you’re competing,” St. Brown said. “When I was a kid, sometimes me and my brothers got in fights, never nothing crazy, where we would take each other’s heads off, but we fought.
“I feel like that’s just the nature of two competitors and I hate to lose so if someone is going to do something extra, I’m going to do something extra, too.”
St. Brown says he’s never one to start a fight but doesn’t tolerate disrespect.
“In the game, it’s different. I’m smart. I’m going to keep my composure. I’m never going to throw a punch, unless it’s egregious, but in practice, anything goes,” St. Brown said. “So, if it’s getting out of hand, I’m going to throw a punch and in training camp, they’re not fining me. It’s practice, again. Some people think they can just do what they want, but that’s not the case with me.”