Amon-Ra St. Brown Given Surprising Analytical Rank Among NFC WRs

The Detroit Lions have one of the top offenses in football, and a big reason why that is wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Through 13 weeks, St. Brown is the highest-graded wide receiver in the NFC, according to Pro Football Focus.

St. Brown, a second-year player out of USC, has 76 receptions on 100 targets for 830 yards and six touchdowns. He’s already tied his rookie-year touchdown number with six and is on a pace to set career highs in targets, receptions and receiving yards.

Since the start of the season, St. Brown has been playing like a man possessed. He has passed the eye test and, even though he is only 14th in the league in yards receiving and seventh in the league among wideouts in receptions, PFF’s advanced analytics put him as one of the league’s best.

PFF also placed St. Brown, 23, on its Team of the Week list for his December 4 performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars, in which he hauled in 11 of 12 targets for 114 yards and two touchdowns.

“St. Brown is a force to be reckoned with,” MLive’s Benjamin Raven wrote on November 21. “He continues to be an efficient machine and the focal point of this attack.”

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St. Brown Beat Many Top Wideouts for Distinction

The PFF distinction might be eye-opening for some given the elite competition St. Brown has in the NFC.

There’s the Minnesota Vikings’ Justin Jefferson, who already has 1,277 receiving yards on 88 receptions and the same number of touchdowns as St. Brown. Elsewhere, A.J. Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles (950 yards, nine touchdowns), Terry McLaurin (945 yards) of the Washington Commanders, CeeDee Lamb (928 yards) of the Dallas Cowboys and rookie Chris Olave (887 yards) of the New Orleans Saints have all been fantastic.

One of the reasons St. Brown is being compared to the conference top receivers is his attitude and preparation.

“He works like it’s the last day he’ll ever be able to play the game,” head coach Dan Campbell said, according to a November 18 story by The Athletic’s Dan Pompei. “Every rep he takes, he works the detail of the route. He catches and he finishes every play. There’s never a catch and then he just kind of glides through it. He’s trained himself that practice is very much game-like to him. His approach to the game is as good as I’ve been around.”

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St. Brown Enjoying Fantastic 2022 Season

This year, the wideout has done nothing to change the notion that he is a player on the rise to be taken seriously in terms of star power in the league. More than likely, he’s going to finish the year well over 1,000 yards, which would go a long way toward being mentioned among the league’s wideouts.

St. Brown’s best game of the year other than Week 13’s two score, 114 yard explosion did come on Thanksgiving Day, where he went for 122 yards and a score against a solid Buffalo team. Perhaps this effort will start to get him on more national radars.

For now, St. Brown remains underrated in a big way. Even those in the analytic community would seem to prefer that to not be the case given all the wideout offers both now and for the future.

Stats like this only serve to prove why his time may be coming sooner rather than later.

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