Detroit Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown on ankle injury recovery
Amon-Ra St. Brown said he started feeling better two days before the Detroit Lions’ game against the Cowboys, after injuring his ankle Thanksgiving.
A week after he was a gametime decision because of a sprained ankle, Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said the injury is no longer an issue ahead of his game against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, Dec. 14.
“It was a little sore after the game, but it wasn’t too bad,” St. Brown said Thursday. “It’s getting better every day so that’s good. I feel like hopefully it’s behind me now.”
St. Brown sprained his ankle in the first quarter of the Lions’ Thanksgiving loss to the Green Bay Packers and did not practice before last week’s win over the Dallas Cowboys.
He played 57 of a possible 62 offensive snaps against the Cowboys, caught a pass on the Lions’ first offensive play and finished with six catches for 92 yards.
St. Brown couldn’t walk until a few days after the injury, he said after the game, and didn’t know for sure he was going to play until about 24 hours before kickoff.
“Wednesday [I was] critically concerned about his ability to play in the game,” Lions wide receivers coach Scottie Montgomery said. “And Thursday he went out and put together a performance that was not only strong, but it was just one of those deals that our team needed to see in our leader on the field.”
Montgomery said he talked with St. Brown via a video call when the receiver was at dinner with his girlfriend Wednesday to go over changes to the Lions’ gameplan that included St. Brown playing with different personnel packages than normal – a tweak the Lions made when they did not think St. Brown would be ready for the game.
St. Brown said he was “a little bit more gassed” than usual in the game after not practicing for two weeks – the Lions held walk-throughs only in the short week before the Packers game. But the hardest part of playing through his injury was the mental side of the game.
“We had different personnels in, cause we didn’t know if I was going to play or not, so different spots that I was in, different plays and just not being able to rep it I think was the hardest part,” St. Brown said. “Usually during the week I’m repping the plays and getting the mental reps and everything, the physical reps, so just being able to see it on an iPad and then go out there and do it, that was probably one of the hardest parts for me.”
St. Brown, who leads the Lions with 81 catches, 976 yards and nine touchdowns, is off the injury report this week and a full-go for Sunday’s game against the Rams.
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.