Six days before the game, Amon-Ra St. Brown was hobbling around on crutches, unable to walk. Five days before the game, the pain in his injured ankle was so severe that he figured "I probably can't play." Four days before the game, St. Brown tried to jog and "I couldn't even do a skip."
"And then Tuesday came and it felt a lot better and I was like, OK, I have a shot, I have a chance. And then by Wednesday I was like, I think I can play," St. Brown said after the Lions' 44-30 win over the Cowboys.
The Lions put St. Brown through a little workout on Wednesday to see what he could do. It wasn't perfect, said Dan Campbell, but it was good enough. Once St. Brown woke up Thursday without any ill effects, "nobody was going to talk him out of playing," Campbell said.
"My job is to go out there and make plays and be on that field. That’s what they pay me to do, so I was going to do whatever it takes to be out there," said St. Brown.
"Yes," said Campbell, "his teammates feed off of that."
"Obviously his play speaks for itself tonight," said Jared Goff, "but bigger than anything is everyone knowing what he’s dealing with, and him being like, ‘I’m going to be out there,’ and figuring out a way. Not many guys built like him."
Goff's first pass of the game went to none other than St. Brown. His last pass of the game that helped seal the Lions' biggest win of the season went to St. Brown, a 37-yard catch and run on a slant when most teams probably would have tried running out the clock leading by seven with a little more than two minutes to go.
"I loved the call," said Goff. "I really did, I thought that was awesome by Dan. He’s our guy. And the way they were playing the run, they were so downhill, you don’t want to wait until third down when they know you’re going to potentially throw it, so you do it on second down. It was a great call, he was wide open, and made a great play."
The catch was St. Brown's sixth of the night for a total of 92 yards, a gutty, gritty performance in a game the Lions couldn't afford to lose. He said he would have been out there no matter the team's record, no matter the stakes of the game, but he knew just how badly the Lions needed this one. They all did.
"It was cool to see him say, 'You’re not going to keep me off the field,'" said Goff.
"I already knew what he was about," said Jahmyr Gibbs, who rushed for three touchdowns. "I knew he was going to try to play regardless of what was going on. I know who he is, and you saw it out there."
Likewise, left tackle Taylor Decker wasn't the least bit surprised when St. Brown suited up: "I just know him. I’ve been with him enough, like, 'He’ll play, he’ll be fine.' He’s a guy that’s going to play unless he’s going to be on IR."
Not only did he play, St. Brown logged all but five of the Lions' offensive snaps. Campbell could hardly even think about giving him a blow: "He didn't want any plays off. Like, he's going in to compete." Asked afterward how his ankle was feeling, St. Brown said, "It feels decent, doesn’t feel too bad,"
"I took some medication, so that helps. Will probably wear off by tomorrow morning," he said with a grin -- smiling through the pain that he knew was coming.
Winning heals everything. Campbell gave St. Brown a game ball for his efforts, then took to the post-game podium and said, "That guy – where he goes, we go."
"His toughness and willpower, his desire to compete, to help the guys around him, to do whatever it takes to win, is second to none. He is rare, man," said Campbell, who was the same way as a player, with just a little less talent. "His mentality is just, he refuses to fail. Nothing is going to dictate where he goes, what he does, how it’s going to be. He will dictate to himself what he’s going to do."
For all his skill, St. Brown is long on the trait that's plastered on the walls throughout the Lions' practice facility: GRIT. With their backs against the wall, he proved yet again what everyone knows: "St. Brown" said Campbell, "is what we are."