A season removed from snatching the seventh most passes in the NFL, a few minutes removed from snaring touchdown after touchdown against the Lions defense on Tuesday, there was Amon-Ra St. Brown catching 202 balls on the JUGS machine after practice. Well, in this case, only 201.
"I actually dropped the first one," St. Brown said.
The Lions' star receiver is always keeping score. He counted and memorized the 16 receivers drafted ahead of him in 2021, and he's acutely aware of where he stands in relation to the rest of his peers. With 107 catches for 1,161 yards last season, St. Brown was one of only seven receivers in the 100-1,000 club. He has climbed quickly toward the elite players at his position. Except, if you ask him now, St. Brown is back on the ground floor.
"This is a new year," he said. "We're all at zero. I have zero catches, zero touchdowns, zero everything. I'm the same as everyone else. I feel like you have to restart each year. And I have Twitter, I have Instagram, I see stuff. You guys like to write stuff and I don't forget things that I see. You guys like to say certain things, whether it's negative or positive, and I like to prove people wrong."
He'll have to get comfortable proving people right. As St. Brown enters year three in Detroit, his doubters have become believers. He's not the fastest or quickest player, far from the biggest or strongest, but St. Brown has willed and skilled himself into one of the best receivers in the NFL.
To explain how, he points to his boyhood idol Kobe Bryant, whose own idol was Michael Jordan. St. Brown, a huge Lakers fan growing up in Orange County, still preaches the Mamba Mentality. It boils down to obsession. No matter how good Kobe got, he refused to accept that he couldn't get better.
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"I always wanted to be like Kobe," said St. Brown. "His mentality, that was my favorite. I don't care the sport, Kobe was my guy. If you watch Kobe, he kind of modeled his game after Jordan. Just their mentality, when they got to work every day, they were the same guy. You never got a different Jordan. I feel like Kobe was the same way.
"And teammates respect that. When you're that great at that stage of your career and you see the way he's outworking everybody before practice, after practice, it's something inspiring. I want to be like that."
St. Brown, 23, made his first Pro Bowl last season. He still recites those 16 receivers drafted ahead of him before practice begins, and he's still one of the last players off the field when it ends. St. Brown has statistical goals this season that he'll keep to himself, but his overarching aim is simple: "Be better than I was."
"My biggest thing is consistency," he said. "I think that's what wins in this league. Can I do what I did last year? Can I be better?"
If St. Brown keeps raising the bar, he'll bring the Lions along with him -- just like Kobe did for the Lakers and Jordan did for the Bulls.
"Obviously, winning is always the biggest thing for me," he said. "Whatever I can do to help this team win.
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