St. Browns Upside?

Just curious to see what everyone thinks his upside could be? Everyone points to his size and lack and top end speed and automatically assume his upside is capped, but why?

Guys like JaMarr Chase, Cooper Kupp, Justin Jefferson, and Stefon Diggs are considered top 10 WRs and are around the same size as St Brown. Nobody on that list is more than 2" bigger than St. Brown or 10 pounds heavier. Diggs is actually the same height, but a little smaller. Kupp ran a slower 40 and Diggs was only .05 seconds faster.

St. Brown’s work ethic is insane and he already had the best PFF drop grade in the NFL last year.

  • PFF drop grade: 91.0 , 1st in NFL regardless of position

Who’s so say that he can’t keep pushing himself to the heights of the guys I mentioned. I know most people here, myself included, say he profiles more as a high end complimentary piece instead of a stud #1, but why? He was playing like one of the best WR’s in the NFL to finish the season with an offense that was partly installed during the season and just a bunch of bodies around him. With a guy like Williams, who will open up the field, why can’t he take another step?

So my question to this group is will St. Brown prove himself to be among the upper echelon WR’s in the next couple seasons, and if not, why?

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I think he’s going to have a terrific career, but his production/stats may actually decrease a bit this year because we have other WR’s that actually have talent. There is only 1 football and with Ja-Mo, Chark, Reynolds, Cephus, St. Brown, Swift, J-Will, Hock… that’s a lot of mouths to feed, which is a good problem to have because it should make the offense much better overall and give Goff plenty of weapons to throw to. It’ll be difficult for St. Brown to catch 90 balls again if these guys all stay healthy. I’m expecting the Lions to have several guys in the 50-60 catch range with the ball being spread around to everyone.

St. Brown impressed me not only with the ball in his hands, but also he was a very physical blocker. What a 4th round steal.

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I can see him being a bigger version of Julian Edelman. Not going to wow you with unworldly athletic traits but somehow just keeps getting open and making plays. You know he’s going to give max effort on every snap.

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I like that comp. I really like the Hines Ward one, too, especially with his downfield blocking. I hope we continue to see Sun God grow into some amalgamation of those dudes (and more).

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Yup - Like a more handsome Edelman. I see that too.
I think he’ll have comparable production to last year, maybe slightly better. It’ll be spread out over 17 games, instead of jammed into the last half of the season, though. He might start out hot and drop on production when J-Will comes back.

If you take what he did in the final 6 games last year and extrapolated that over the course of a full 17 game season his stats are as below

145 Receptions (which is 4 short of the record)
1,587 Receiving Yards
173 Rushing Yards
1,759 Total Yards (Both Rushing and Receiving)
17 TD’s

Obviously he isn’t toucing those numbers, but I wanted to put it into perspective how impressive his finish to the season was. I would certainly expect him to take a step back this season based off how he finished the year. I also agree that the added weapons should take away more opportunities, but he should also have more room to work which means his yards per reception should increase. I still think he has the best grasp on the system, has the best hands, is the best route runner, and has earned Goff’s trust. He is going to be a focal point of this team and I would expect him to garner the most targets of all our players. I see him getting about 8 targets a game which puts him in the top 30 in the NFL. So my expectations from him in 2022 are as follows (assuming he plays 17 games).

100 Receptions
1,150 Receiving Yards
6 Receiving TD’s
20 Rushing Attempts
175 Rushing Yards
2 Rushing TD’s
1,325 Total Yards

Maybe that appears lofty to some here, but I think this guy is capable. That is not far off from what Robert Woods did with the Rams in 2018 and 2019 and St. Brown has been compared to him quite a bit. The averages per game for the receptions and receiving yards is only 5.9 receptions per game and 68 receiving yards.

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Especially with Ja-Mo likely being on PUP, St. Brown probably gets more targets early in the year, a lot with depend on how healthy the WR core is throughout the year. Goff clearly has a connection with St. Brown. I just want to win. Let coverage dictate where the ball goes, we got weapons all over the field finally.

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I would love a group of WR so good overall, you could give each of them a in season off and not miss a beat and let they heal…

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100%. If we win the game I could care less who did what. I just think St. Brown is going to follow up his rookie season with a very good statisical season regardless of the added weapons around him.

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the best thing is he is a proven threat and must be respected any play he is in, opening up the others in the porcess!

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Another thing to keep in mind is St. Brown’s production exploded right around the same time Hockenson went out for the season. Hock missed the last 5 games and was averaging 7 targets a game through the first 12 week.

In the 5 games Hock was out, St. Brown became the focal point of the offense and averaged 11 targets per game when Hock wasn’t in the lineup.

This has to be exciting for Ben Johnson because now we will have both of them, Goff clearly trusted those 2 a lot. Hock had 60+ catches in 12 games and St. Brown had 90 catches. Add in Chark and Ja-Mo, and even Swift is very good as a receiver. Pass the koolaid!! Defenses can’t cover everyone.

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I think his ceiling is Hines Ward. And that’s a huge compliment from me. But could be more. I mean, no one thought Jerry Rice would put up what we call “Jerry Rice numbers” back then.

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There was a nice writeup about him today.

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Love it!

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I watched several videos about St. Brown after the trick play against Green Bay. I can’t remember which one said it, but one clip talked about his ability to succeed…he just has a knack for it. The point was that he was a “go to” type of player and he can make a lot of things happen on the offense.

Biggest jump for a player is the first to second year. I think we’re going to see him jump.He should be a joy to watch!

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And just wait for Sewell in year 2!! He’s going to be mauling people after hitting the weight room hard this offseason.

Happy Sport GIF by Detroit Lions

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I think I’d be happy if St. Brown duplicated last year’s numbers. Our next 4 WR’s combined only had 95 catches (and only 113 total WR catches from other than St. Brown).

I think most would argue that Chark/Williams is an upgrade to what we had before and would expect 100+ catches between those 2.

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Compared to what St Brown did last year I feel like there is more downside than upside but hope i’m wrong.

The Hines Ward comp is a good one. Derrick Mason is another guy he kind of reminds me of.

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for me, I am thinking what happens when they double Willams, Chark or TJ?

he will win his coverage imho… or double him and the others get singel coverage

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