Amon-Ra St. Brown lined up to set another Lions receiving record

Amon-Ra St. Brown has already set some Lions franchise receiving marks, and he’s on the verge of another this week.

Amon-Ra St. Brown was a draft steal for the Detroit Lions last year, with 90 receptions for 912 yards to set franchise rookie records. Through 13 games this season, despite battling an ankle injury for a time, he is close to over to those numbers already (89 catches for 974 yards and six touchdowns).

St. Brown is already the first and only Lion with back-to-back 900-yard seasons to start a career. But he’s nearing another Lions’ franchise record, well within range during Saturday’s game against the Carolina Panthers.

Amon-Ra St. Brown well within range of another Detroit Lions record

With 26 yards against the Panthers, St. Brown will reach 1,000 yards for the season. Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson is the youngest receiver in Lions’ franchise history with a 1,000-yard season, when he had 1,331 yards in his second season (2008). When he crossed the 1,000-yard mark that year, “Megatron” was 23 years and 69 days old (h/t to Kyle Meinke of MLive).

If St. Brown gets 26 yards on Saturday, which feels like a foregone conclusion, he will be 23 years and 61 days old when he reaches 1,000 yards–beating Johnson’s mark by eight days. #Math.

Another mark that’s realistically within St. Brown’s reach this year is 100 receptions. He needs 11 over the final three games.

In Lions history, there have been five 100-plus catch seasons.

Herman Moore, 1995-123 receptions
Calvin Johnson, 2012-122 receptions
Brett Perriman, 1995-108 receptions
Herman Moore, 1996-106 receptions
Herman Moore, 1997-104 receptions

Throw out his early exit (10 snaps in) due to head injury protocols against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 7, and St. Brown is averaging 7.3 receptions in his other 12 games this season. If he averages that over the final three games, that’s 22 more receptions and 111 catches for the season.

That would be the third-highest catch total in Lions’ history. Missing one game and almost all of another where he had one catch would diminish the “but he (St. Brown) had a 17th game” angle to try to dimish milestones.