Amon-Ra St. Brown mixes it up in practice again—this time with Jeff Okudah

We may only be a couple of weeks into training camp, but Detroit Lions rookie receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown already has a bit of a reputation. During the team’s first padded practice last week, he mixed it up with fellow rookie Ifeatu Melifonwu after a special teams drill got a little too physical. Some punches were thrown, but that was that. They lined up again a few reps later without incident.

Flash forward a week, and St. Brown isn’t letting his intensity die down one iota. Again, he mixed it up during a special teams drill leading to a bit of a scrum with no punches thrown. This time around, he went against the secondary’s top dog: Jeff Okudah.

Tasked with trying to block Okudah, they both collided with an audible pop of the pads, but St. Brown held his ground as they wrestled the rest of the rep. Okudah, being the competitor he is, demanded another rep. So without a break, the two cut the line and ran it back again.

Same result. Pop of the pads, wrestling, but this time the wrestling didn’t stop. Okudah pushed St. Brown back into a group of players as the two were just jawing at each other while locked. It stayed that way for at least 10 seconds, as players around started to try and break them up.

Last week, head coach Dan Campbell said he got fired up from seeing St. Brown’s skirmish with Melifonwu. It’s clear he knew that was part of the package with the young receiver, and that’s just what he wants out of him.

“We had a pretty good idea of Amon-Ra, ‘The Sun God’, what he’s capable of,” Campbell said. “Just when he gets pads on, he’s aggressive. It showed up on tape in college, like this guy will mix it up.”

St. Brown is an intense competitor, but he’s even more of a hard worker, as he showed after Tuesday’s practice.

He’s going to be a lot of fun in 2021 and beyond.