Exposing Myself On My Biggest NFL Draft Whiffs: Amon-Ra St. Brown

Exposing Myself On My Biggest NFL Draft Whiffs: Amon-Ra St. Brown

I am the best NFL Draft expert on the industry. You can search up and down this site. I dare you. I’m about 98% on evaluating players when it comes to the draft. However, there are 257 picks in every draft so I’m bound to miss on a few. Amon-Ra St. Brown is certainly one of those players and it’s time to put my hand up in the air and admit I botched this one.

Again, I want to start with this. Admitting when you’re wrong is what gives you credibility. You will also notice that I’m the only NFL Draft analyst on the internet who’s willing to expose himself after the fact. You the reader should always evaluate the evaluator. What I’m doing with this series is something the other mainstream people refuse to do. When this stuff happens, the only thing we can do is learn from our mistakes. Something the mainstream people also refuse to do since they make the same mistakes over and over again.

I just think expectations are super important with any discussion about players. What were the expectations on St. Brown? Well, coming into college, St. Brown was a consensus five-star recruit. He just never really played like a five-star and never really resembled a number one receiver. It’s not an accident he was taken in the 4th round.

The freshman year was intriguing. 750 yards in year one was a “ok that’s cool, let’s see how this thing develops” feel. Year two, St. Brown notched 1,042 yards and six scores. It was good but how dominant was he? St. Brown was just 5-foot-10 and his older brother is essentially a flame out. Then the junior year happens where he only plays six games and records 478 yards and seven scores.

If you read my stock notes from back then, there were obvious concerns. All of his damage was coming on short routes near the line of scrimmage. He appeared physically strong but was he really going to ragdoll NFL corners? That was how he was winning in college. The pure movement skills weren’t crazy. Wasn’t a crazy speed guy and a lot of the success he had was by simply out-muscling Pac-12 corners. Was that really sustainable?

Not overly big. Not overly fast. Route running was fine but not elite. What was he good at outside of being a stout strong guy?

Clearly I wasn’t the only one who saw the red flags. St. Brown was the 16th receiver taken in the 2021 NFL Draft. Detroit snagged him in the 4th round of that draft. Again, if the rest of the league didn’t see the warts, he would have gone much higher. You couldn’t ignore the warts.

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In fairness to myself, I had him ranked much higher than his actual draft position. I had him as WR9 that year and if I was a GM that year, it’s very possible he would have been on my team because he slipped even further than I thought and I wasn’t exactly his biggest cheerleader. In reality, Trey was more on the money compared to the rest of the industry but it’s still no excuse on my part for being as low as I was.

More than anything, it reminded me of a lesson I’ve already learned and should have been more mindful of when it came to evaluating St. Brown. You just can’t underestimate the power of the weight room. John Brown, St. Brown’s father, is a well-regarded powerlifter. It turns out St. Brown rag dolling corners wasn’t by accident. His power translated to the NFL field and it’s a huge reason why he’s successful. St. Brown clearly puts time into the weight room and I should have factored that more into things during the draft process.

Of course, we know now that St. Brown has emerged as one of the game’s best and has been compensated like it since. He’s a great player and I regret not being more of a fan during the pre-draft process.

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