Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown is coming off a breakout season where he racked up over 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns but what makes it more impressive is that he did it while playing with a very serious injury.
St. Brown, who’s one of the players involved in the Netflix series’ Receiver, revealed that he suffered a toe injury in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks and followed it up by hurting his oblique a week later against het Falcons.
He finished the game against the Seahawks with a team-high six receptions for 102 yards and followed it up by racking up seven exceptions for 102 yards against Atlanta.
“I’ve had a hip pointer before, so I thought it was a hip pointer,” St. Brown said. “Maybe it’s just a little bruise. And I’m like, ‘Damn, my toe’s still hurting at this point. Now I have this oblique injury.’”
Detroit had to work on a short week following the Atlanta game with a matchup against the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football, and despite describing the pain as an eight or nine out of 10, he wanted to be out there.
“It’s too late for me not to play. The game plan’s in,” St. Brown said of the “Thursday Night Football” divisional matchup. “Painkillers is something that I really don’t like to take unless … unless it’s the Packers.”
St. Brown caught a touchdown in the 34-20 Lions win and then got an MRI. He said doctors told him “you tore your oblique completely off the bone,” which led to St. Brown missing Week 6.
Those injuries were not the end of the former fourth-round pick’s struggles, however. He then got hand, foot and mouth disease ahead of Week 8, leading to cuts and bumps.
“Had a mask on my face so no one can see what my face was looking like, because it looked so bad,” St. Brown said.
He noted how painful it was, but despite the issues the disease came with, he was once again determined to play. The 24-year-old had six receptions for 108 yards in the win over the Las Vegas Raiders.
His girlfriend Brooklyn Adams detailed just how bad it got.
“He was sweating so much that the spots on his hands and his feet turned into open sores and blisters,” Adams said. “So he played that entire game with blisters popping.”
The Lions enter 2024 with the forth best odds of winning the Super Bowl (according to multiple Sportsbooks) and will need St. Brown to avoid any injuries and continue his dominant play if they want any chance of ending the Detroit Lions championship drought.
