One thing's clear about Amon-Ra St. Brown through the early portion of Lions’ training camp: the rookie receiver won’t back down. He kicked off the week in pads by throwing hands with fellow rookie Ifeatu Melifonwu and now he’s going blow for blow with Jeff Okudah.
Much like Okudah lined up for reps against Detroit's veteran receivers last year at this time, St. Brown was seeking out competition this week with the former third overall pick.
"Jeff's an amazing corner,” St. Brown said Thursday. "He’s been balling all of camp. So for me, it was just a challenge. I wanted to go against one of our top corners. He challenges me, and I love it. We challenge each other. It's awesome to have a teammate you can go against every day, just compete and make yourself better.”
Clashing with top corners is nothing new for St. Brown. He was a leading receiver at USC for the past three seasons. He has a chance to be the same in his first season in Detroit. Right now, the fourth-round pick looks like the Lions’ best option in the slot between Tyrell Williams and Breshad Perriman.
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On Wednesday in Allen Park, St. Brown found himself matched up with Okudah in a one-on-one passing drill. Okudah got the better of him on a slant.
“So I told him I wanted to go against him again, so I kind of cut the line and went again,” St. Brown said.
This time, St. Brown got the better of Okudah. And now Okudah wanted another shot at St. Brown.
“So he called me out and I cut the line again and I went again,” St. Brown said. “That's kind of how that went down.”
It will likely go down like this for the next few weeks. The more they clash, the more they should grow.
"You love the competitiveness, the will to be better,” said St. Brown. "We all want to be better out there, and you love that on the team.”
St. Brown’s competitiveness first shined through when he locked horns with Melifonwu in an open-field blocking drill on Tuesday. After St. Brown drove Melifonwu backward, the two came grill to grill and exchanged punches. Cooler heads prevailed, and St. Brown told Melifonwu shortly thereafter, “Good job, nothing personal.” Dan Campbell said the next day the scrap fired him up.
"I think little things like that fire up the team in general,” said St. Brown.
Campbell’s point was that growth demands competition, and the best competition comes with emotion. So where some head coaches might have dismissed St. Brown and Melifonwu from practice for fighting, Campbell let them play on. In fact, the pair went one-on-one again a few moments later.
"It's awesome to have a head coach that's supporting me,” said St. Brown. "Obviously you probably don't want to fight out in practice and whatnot, but I wouldn't say it was anything too crazy. It was just a little scuffle. But it's nice to have a coach that's tough, that likes that kind of attitude.”
St. Brown's got a pretty good game to go with it, and a strong case for a big role as a rookie.