There are football players, and there are animals. And then there is Amon-Ra St. Brown.
We knew he put a steel plate in his cleat last season in order to play through a toe injury. But as St. Brown revealed on the Netflix docu-series 'Receiver' released Wednesday, that was just the tip of what he endured over the course of his All-Pro campaign.
St. Brown originally injured his toe in Week 2. The following week against the Falcons, he also suffered an oblique injury getting tackled on a catch over the middle. The Lions were playing the Packers four days later on Thursday Night Football. St. Brown wasn't going to miss it, even though he was at an "eight or nine out of 10" on the pain scale.
He said it was "too late for me not to play. The game plan's in."
"Painkillers are something that I really don't like to take unless -- unless it's the Packers," St. Brown said with a grin.
Then he caught five passes for 56 yards and a touchdown in the Lions' win at Lambeau.
It gets better (or worse). The next week, an MRI showed that St. Brown had torn his oblique. As in, "completely off the bone," doctors told him. The Lions shut him down the next week to avoid making the injury worse. He returned the week after to catch 12 passes for for 124 yards and a touchdown in a win over the Bucs.
Two weeks after that, St. Brown came down with "hand, foot, and mouth disease" ahead of Detroit's Monday Night Football game against the Raiders. His body was covered in blisters, cuts and sores. St. Brown said he wore a mask on his face "because it looked so bad." His girlfriend said he was in "so much pain."
The pain was especially acute in his hands, which isn't exactly ideal for a receiver. Nevertheless, St. Brown played through it and caught six passes for 108 yards in the Lions' win.
"He was sweating so much that the spots on his hands and his feet turned into open sores and blisters," his girlfriend said. "He played that entire game with blisters popping."
"It feels like I'm stepping on needles," St. Brown told teammate Kalif Raymond on the sidelines.
Despite a bum toe, a torn oblique and a brutal virus, St. Brown missed just one game all season on his way to catching the second most passes (119) for the third most yards (1,515) and fourth most touchdowns (10) in the NFL.
No wonder the Lions just made him one of the highest-paid receivers in the NFL.
