Amon-Ra St. Brown — Week 1: Fourteen Targets and the Overtime Touchdown
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
St. Brown was thrown to fourteen times, more than a third of Detroit's thirty-nine throws, and caught ten for sixty-seven yards and both Lions passing touchdowns — nineteen yards deep right on third and four for 21–0 in the third quarter, and four yards short left on second and four with five oh seven left in overtime for the score that won it. Six of the fourteen targets came on third down, in a 31–30 win over the Saints.
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The game ended on a four-yard throw to Amon-Ra St. Brown. Second and four at the New Orleans four, five oh seven left in overtime, 24 all, shotgun, Jared Goff short left, touchdown, 31 to 24. That catch was worth +1.5 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and it was the tenth catch on the fourteenth target of an afternoon in which the ball went his way more than a third of the times Detroit threw it.
The other touchdown was the longer one. Third and four at the New Orleans 19, eight 59 left in the third, Detroit up 14 to nothing, deep right, 16 yards in the air, 19 yards, 21 to nothing. +2.8 expected points, the best single play in his line. The whole line: 14 targets, 10 catches, 67 yards, two touchdowns, +0.8 expected points on the 14. Six targets came on third down and four were caught, and two of those four converted — the 19-yard score and a five-yarder on third and five from the Detroit 42 at the end of the first quarter. The four incompletions were second and eight at the New Orleans 11 in the first, a deep throw on third and 15 in the second, first and 10 late in the third, and third and three at the Detroit 45 with 13 16 left in the fourth, which ended a drive in a punt. Nothing else he caught went longer than nine yards. Seven targets before halftime, seven after.
He was the first option by a distance: 14 targets to Jameson Williams's nine, Sam LaPorta's eight, Jahmyr Gibbs's five. The two touchdowns were the only two Goff threw. On the last drive of regulation, with the game tied, he caught seven yards on second and eight; the third-and-one throw after it went to Williams and fell incomplete. And on the drive that became a field goal in the fourth, his four-yard catch on third and nine at the New Orleans nine left the Lions at the five, which is where the ball was when Jake Bates kicked.
Back in June the preview called St. Brown the rarest call the show makes — a WR3 finish across all 17 games, on a target share, a role and a health record of about 96 percent availability over five years, all of which the read said carry forward. Sunday carried all three: 14 targets, both touchdowns, and he was on the field at the end. 67 yards is a small number for 14 throws, and one game does not decide whether the yards or the targets are the truer read. Detroit is at the Bills on Thursday the seventeenth. The target count is the one to keep.
_Data via nflverse._
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