Amon-Ra St. Brown continues to take the NFL world by storm, proving that he is one of the most dynamic and explosive wide receivers that the league has to offer. However, he just revealed a big secret that he didn’t share throughout the entire 2024 season. That secret was that he played almost all year with a horrible injury that would have sidelined most players entirely.
St. Brown was listed as one of the few players to be showcased on a new Netflix series, “Receiver”. As the name would suggest, the show follows a number of the league’s best pass catchers to get a glimpse into their daily life throughout the season, both on the field and off of it. You might remember something similar because Netflix released another show titled “Quarterback” last season, which featured the same strategy. When Quarterback proved to be a big hit with the fans, they didn’t waste any time by pivoting to another position to get a different perspective with new faces.
With the show recently released, St. Brown was given a lot of screen time. At that time, it was revealed that he suffered a toe injury back in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks. The next week, he suffered a severe oblique injury against the Atlanta Falcons. Despite dealing with immense pain, he was able to work with doctors and find a way to hit the field in Week 4. St. Brown probably wouldn’t have played had the game been placed on a Thursday Night and just so happened to be against the Detroit Lions rivals, the Green Bay Packers. St. Brown said this when it came to playing that week, “It’s too late for me not to play. The game plan’s in. Painkillers is something that I really don’t like to take unless it’s the Packers.” You might think that he would have struggled mightily to produce considering the multiple injuries he was dealing with on top of playing on a short week. Instead, he hauled in seven receptions for 56 yards and scored a touchdown in the Lion’s double-digit victory against their bitter foes.
When that game ended, St. Brown didn’t waste any time heading back with the doctors to get an MRI to fully reveal the extent and severity of his injuries. Nobody could have prepared themselves for the news that they heard. The doctors informed St. Brown that he had torn his oblique completely off of the bone. With everybody in Detroit fearing the worst, head coach Dan Campbell quickly chose to sit him out for the team’s next game against the Carolina Panthers to avoid worsening the issue. He admitted that he played with this injury for most of the season from that point onwards, a season where the Lions advanced into the NFC Championship game and were just a few bounces away from heading into a Super Bowl. It was a very long season, which meant he dealt with a completely torn oblique the entire way.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing he was struggling with. Right before the Lions took on the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 8, doctors determined that he was suffering from hand, foot, and mouth disease. When asked about the pain of dealing with this, he said, “I had a mask on my face so nobody could see what my face was looking like, ’cause it looked bad. I’m running on needles. Catching the ball hurt, everything was just hurting at that point.” Now, when you take that into consideration along with the torn oblique, what St. Brown was able to accomplish in 2023 is nothing short of spectacular. St. Brown was named as a First-Team All-Pro while playing in 16 games somehow. He had career highs in receptions with 119, receiving yards with 1,515, and touchdown catches with 10 of them. He gave it his all throughout the entire season, and it showed in a big way how successful the team was from start to finish.
Don’t worry, though; the Lions didn’t just ignore what St. Brown risked playing for them all of last year. When the season officially came close, the team picked up contract negotiations with St. Brown to try and lock him down in the foreseeable future. After some talking, the Lions handed Amon-Ra a contract that was four years in length and worth a reported $120 million in total.
When it comes to fighting through pain and adversity, Amon-Ra displayed exactly what the Lions have been preaching for the last few years. This franchise has struggled mightily throughout history, yet with Dan Campbell and a new coaching regime taking over a few years ago, toughness is required and celebrated. If you want to be a Lion these days, you have to show an ability to fight through the pain and keep working. St. Brown’s injury was so severe that he could have sat out if he had liked to try and fully recover quickly. However, he didn’t do that and chose to keep on playing the rest of the season in order to give his teammates the best chance at winning more games. If you’re a Lions fan hearing this news, you’re probably insanely stressed out that he went that long with a serious injury and risked making it worse.
At the same time, you probably couldn’t be any prouder to support this group and be a fan of a guy who genuinely risked his own health to keep on suiting up and fighting through pain that most people wouldn’t even come close to being able to tolerate. As we go throughout the rest of the offseason, there’s a hope that Amon-Ra can fully recover from his injuries and be sure to enter the new year with a clean bill of health. Even if he’s a little banged up, it’d likely be a much steadier place than how he ended the season with the wear and tear that he accumulated. This young superstar is truly breaking out in front of our eyes.
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