Amon-Ra St. Brown clearly expects a lot of himself, but he’s setting some goals to raise bar for the Detroit Lions in 2023.
Leaders are only credible if they set an example for others to follow. Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown has a fantastic start to his career, with a chip on his shoulder the size of the 16 wide receivers taken before him in the 2021 NFL Draft.
So even only entering his third season, “The Sun God” is a tone-setter and a budding team leader for the Lions. Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press recently caught up with him, and he confirmed he wants to be more of a leader this year.
While that’s a personal, behind the scenes goal, St. Brown is setting some broader goals for the team in 2023.
Amon-Ra St. Brown setting the bar high for the Detroit Lions in 2023
The Lions fell just shy of the playoffs last season, with their destiny ultimately not totally in their hands in Week 18. Per Birkett, St. Brown wants the next step.
"I have my personal goals but what I really want to do this year—I know we won a few games last year we finished pretty strong but man, I want to go to the playoffs so bad,” Detroit, as a city, they want it so bad. I feel like as a team, we want it bad. I feel like we’ve got the guys to do it,"
St. Brown talked with Birkett about the excitement around Jameson Williams heading into the 2023 season, then he talked about expectations the Lions’ offense as a whole.
"We had a pretty decent offense last year,” Obviously, you want to be No. 1 in every category, so I think that’s what we’re striving for as an offense. Obviously, No. 1 in total yards per game, total scoring offense, we want to be No. 1 in all those categories….. So I think honestly, I think if you ask Ben, his goal would be to be No. 1 in all categories, and that’s my goal, too. I think that’s everyone’s goal on offense because we know we can do it."
The Lions were fifth in the league in scoring offense last season, third in total offense, eighth in passing offense and 11th in rushing offense. So there is room to improve, and there were certainly a few lackluster games for the offense last year.
St. Brown has a high bar for himself, and he’s gone public to raise the bar for the Lions in 2023.