KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Amon-Ra St. Brown dropping a pass is among the surest signs things aren’t going the Detroit Lions’ way.
St. Brown is an All-Pro wide receiver for a reason. The 25-year-old is already in the top five in both receiving yards and catches on the franchise’s all-time leaderboard. He is quarterback Jared Goff’s go-to weapon, no matter the situation or matchup.
And that’s not going to change after one drop, no matter how costly it was.
St. Brown let one slip through his hands in a tough spot near the end of the first half. The Lions were going for it on fourth-and-2 from Kansas City’s 44-yard line, trying to build upon an early lead. The Chiefs scored on the next drive heading into halftime, then hit the double-whammy by opening the second half with another touchdown.
“I mean, I don’t know if it was tipped,” St. Brown said after the game. “Should have caught it. It went right to me. Right in my hands ... Should’ve caught it.”
In what felt like the blink of an eye, the Lions went from leading 10-6 to being in a 20-10 hole. The downfall all started with a consistently automatic play and player. It’s one of those moments that is a clear turning point, but it’s a play the Lions would take every time in that situation.
Lions quarterback Jared Goff got the ball out under pressure. The throw might not have been precisely on the money, and had more wobble than he would have liked, but it got where it needed to be.
And then the unexplainable happened.
“That never happens,” Goff said. “It’s something I know he wants back, but it’s not anything that we will think twice about.”
St. Brown finished with nine catches on 10 targets for 45 yards in the team’s 30-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football. The one target he missed was the consequential drop -- the first fourth-down drop of his five-year career.
He entered the game against the Chiefs with the highest success rate (70.7%) among any player to see at least 25 targets this season. He also was tied for the NFL lead with a 85.4% catch rate, so rare is the accurate word for what happened in Kansas City.
The offense never seemed to find its groove after the drop. It overshadowed another milestone for the receiver, too, as he moved into third place on the franchise’s all-time leaderboard, passing Johnnie Morton, with 474 career receptions.
He also continued to do a little bit of everything for the Lions — St. Brown blocks like someone fighting for a roster spot and not a two-time All-Pro wide receiver. The receiver led the way on the nullified touchdown catch by Jared Goff in the first quarter, doing his job as perfectly as possible. But that play was not meant to be, either, highlighting a weird and uncharacteristic night for Detroit.
St. Brown has only two recorded drops across 51 targets in six games, remaining as sure-handed as receivers get in this league. He is the focal point of the passing attack, and that’s not changing anytime soon. But the mistake altered the flow of the game, and it opened the door for the Chiefs to take control, as they always do in those moments.
“Look, Saint has made a ton of plays for us,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “What frustrates me more than anything is that then after that point, what is the next play we have to make to get ourselves back in it? That is the ‘where is it going to come from?’ Are we going to get the takeaway on defense, special teams, or offense when we get time to answer back? Can we go down and do something with it? We didn’t convert. It was fourth down. It was a big play, but there were a number of plays.
“I really felt like, speaking of the first half, there were three plays in there, and if we make any one of them, the game is really a lot different in the first half. We didn’t do it.”
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