The NFL offseason hasn’t even begun, and we’re already in peak ‘offseason takes’ season.
According to Neal Ruhl of Woodward Sports Network, Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown is “further ahead of almost any wide receiver ever” at this time in his career.
“Amon-Ra St. Brown is further advanced in his career than virtually any other wide receiver. Ever,” Ruhl stated. “For example, Justin Jefferson, whom you all like and worship, is further along in his career. “Look at the numbers.”
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When you look at the stats, it’s evident that Jefferson outperformed St. Brown in almost every area during their respective first three years in the league.
It’s not even close. Jefferson had 1,237 more yards than St. Brown by the end of their third seasons. Jefferson’s 96.5 yards per game is significantly higher than St. Brown’s 73.2 yards per game.
In fact, Jefferson set records during his first three seasons. Records belonged to Odell Beckham Jr. and Randy Moss. Jefferson’s 324 receptions, 4,825 yards, and 96.5 yards per game are the highest in NFL history for anyone in their first three seasons.
Now that we know the baseline figures aren’t close, what about the awards? Jefferson was a three-time Pro Bowl selection, earning one first-team All-Pro and two second-team All-Pro awards. St. Brown has two Pro Bowl invitations and one first-team All-Pro.
Again, not close, and we didn’t even mention Jefferson’s Offensive Player of the Year award following his third season, when he was also a nominee for the league MVP award.
Ruhl persisted when his co-host attempted to refute the hot take.
“Amon-Ra St. Brown gets overlooked because he doesn’t catch the 60-yard deep ball,” Ruhl said in a statement. “That is why. That is the sole reason why. It’s not that he is a bad receiver. He isn’t. It’s the nature of his game and what he’s expected to do in the offense. And he does it as well as anyone in the NFL. I will back that up. Could Justin Jefferson play Amon-Ra St. Brown’s role as well?
So the ONLY reason St. Brown doesn’t have as many yards is because the Lions don’t throw deep as often? And Jefferson couldn’t dominate running shorter routes like St. Brown?
Let’s investigate and compare their numbers after three seasons in the league.
- Yards per reception: Jefferson 14.9 | St. Brown 11.4
- Average depth of target: Jefferson 12.0 | St. Brown 7.3
Below are the comparisons of the receiving depth numbers from each of the first three seasons of both receivers, according to PFF.
The results support Ruhl’s claim that Jefferson is expected to run substantially deeper runs on average than St. Brown. Ruhl may be mistaken in his view that Jefferson could not play the short game as well as St. Brown.
While Jefferson ranks lower in the short game than St. Brown, his yards-per-reception on short passes (0-9 yards) are practically comparable.
Jefferson: 138 receptions, 1,198 yards; 8.68 yards per reception.
St. Brown: 204 receptions, 1,813 yards, 8.88 yards per reception.
While St. Brown leads Jefferson in receptions behind the line of scrimmage (6.33 yards per reception to 4.95), stating the Minnesota receiver couldn’t play the short game role is incorrect. Remember, one of the questions surrounding Jefferson coming out of college was if he could play outside after dominating as a slot receiver at LSU.
Jefferson averaged 7.5 yards per catch while catching 18 passes behind the line of scrimmage for LSU in 2018. Jefferson averaged 8.7 yards per reception on 53 catches in the short game (0-9 yards), and 20.3 yards per reception on 31 catches in the medium game (10-19 yards).
Jefferson hasn’t been asked to play a role like St. Brown in the NFL. However, history implies that if given the opportunity, he would excel at it.
St. Brown is an excellent player, but ranking him over Jefferson is very bold.
