Ex-elite USC Football WR hasn't missed a beat in NFL, makes history

Amon-Ra St. Brown, USC Football, USC Trojans
Amon-Ra St. Brown, USC Football, USC Trojans / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
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Former star USC Football WR Amon-Ra St. Brown made history over the weekend when he caught nine passes for 116 receiving yards and two touchdowns. And oh yeah, he had two carries for 68 yards as well. He led the Detroit Lions in both receiving AND rushing. The reason this made history is because he now has eight straight games with eight or more catches. That's tied for most all time.

St. Brown is now up to 17 catches on the season. He had 90 as a rookie last year, with 912 yards in just his first year in the league. He already has 180 yards this year, and that's not even counting those 68 rushing yards he has this season. He leads the league with three receiving touchdowns. How he was just a 4th-round draft pick has become even more perplexing than it was originally.

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St. Brown was elite at USC, and it was a huge mistake for the other 31 teams not to draft him despite having their fair share of chances. St. Brown had 2,270 receiving yards in three years at USC (his last season was six games due to the coronavirus-shortened schedule), and had 16 touchdowns. Heck, in that pandemic season he had seven touchdown catches despite the year only being six games long.

Amon-Ra St. Brown excelled with USC football even with three other elite college wideouts on the team.

Amon-Ra St. Brown had to battle for targets on the USC football team with other elite college WR's in Drake London, Michael Pittman Jr., and Tyler Vaughns all at the same time in 2019. He still had 1,042 receiving yards that year on a 13.5 yards per reception average. Now he's the No. 1 on the Lions, which just means he's going to get more and more opportunities to be productive.

The best part of that also is that he's proven he can be productive even when the defense knows he's getting the ball. He proved at USC that he could succeed with other weapons just as good as him or better in the receiver room, and he's proven in the NFL that he can be just as productive (or maybe even more) when he's the main attraction and defenses are focusing in on him.

St. Brown is doing this despite not having the strong quarterback play he had with USC. Jared Goff is the QB out in Detroit, and he's had a wildly up-and-down career.

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So, if there were concerns over how he would perform without a First-Team All-Conference Quarterback throwing him the rock like he had at USC (Kedon Slovis), he's most certainly put those concerns to bed. He's put all concerns to bed--turning into one of the better receivers in the world already, and he's just 22 years old.