St. Brown: 'I Feel Bad for Anyone Trying to Run with Jameson Williams'

Amon-Ra St. Brown praises Ben Johnson, has high expectations for 'Jamo.'

WR Jameson Williams walks off the field after the Detroit Lions training camp at the Lions practice facility in Allen Park, Mich. on Monday, July 29, 2024. / Kimberly P. Mitchell / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Detroit Lions will enter the 2024 season with one of the NFL's very best offenses.

A season ago, the Lions featured a top-five offense (27.1 points/game), with numerous factors contributing to that being the case. For starters, Jared Goff threw for 30 touchdowns and 4,575 yards, David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs combined for nearly 2,000 rushing yards and Amon-Ra St Brown and Penei Sewell produced seasons worthy of All-Pro selections. 

All of that, however, would not have been possible without Ben Johnson, one of the game's brightest offensive minds, calling the plays. 

St. Brown praised, among many things, the work ethic of the Lions offensive coordinator on the latest edition of “The Mina Kimes Show,” hosted by ESPN personality Mina Kimes.

“I think what they don’t see is the amount of work that he puts into his craft,” St. Brown said of Johnson. “He’s up dissecting defenses for hours on end. Honestly, I don’t know if the man sleeps. So, that’s something I really respect about him, his dedication, his work ethic towards being an offensive coordinator, being a play-caller, understanding defenses and what they like to run and different ways that we can attack defenses each and every week. 

“Obviously, every team is different, every team runs different defenses. I think he has an unmatched work ethic, which is why he’s so successful, but then again, also he’s super talented. He understands personalities, he understands the game of football, he’s been around it for a long time. He’s an offensive, you can say, genius. He’s super smart.”

Since becoming the offensive coordinator for St. Brown & Co. in 2022, Johnson has become known for his proficiency at setting up one play call with another play call earlier in a given game.

This, per St. Brown, is not just something that comes to be during a game, though. Instead, it's worked on by Johnson for weeks and weeks leading up to each of Detroit's 17 regular season contests. 

“The thing that Ben does that’s so great is he’s not trying to set up a play during a game, he’s setting it up weeks before,” St. Brown told Kimes. “It might be three, four weeks where we’re running the same play. Get into that next week, he’s like, ‘Okay, we’ve ran this play about four times the last three, four weeks, teams are gonna be expecting it. We’ve got something off that.’ He’s thinking about setting stuff up from weeks prior, which makes it so crazy. Once one week goes by, I’m not even thinking about the game before that really. As a coach, he’s thinking about all that stuff, which, again, I think his ability to look at the details and pay attention to all the little things is what makes him so special.”

Johnson, along with Lions head man Dan Campbell, has also become known for his aggressiveness on fourth down. 

For instance, during the 2023 campaign, the Lions went for it on fourth down 34 percent of the time, the highest rate of any team this century (per ESPN Stats & Information). 

Additionally, prior to squaring off with the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, they had converted 24-of-40 tries on fourth down – good for a 60-percent success rate. 

St. Brown and his teammates have embraced the aggressive play-calling of Johnson and Detroit's offensive coaching staff. 

“We understand going into games that if it’s fourth-and-short and we’re in plus territory, we’re probably gonna go for it. That’s our identity, that’s all I’ve really known since I’ve been here,” the fourth-year receiver expressed. “Sometimes, it’ll be third-and-7, we’ll run a play only getting five yards. In my head sometimes, or it used to be, ‘Why are we running this play? We’re only probably gonna get five yards on this.’ But, the coaches, they all know, we’re going for it on fourth down. So now, I even know when it’s third-and-7, third-and-8, we call a play that’s only designed to get six or seven yards, it’s because we’re gonna go for it on fourth down.” 

Having this aforementioned knowledge has also impacted St. Brown's route-running on third downs.  

“Me, as a player, understanding that helps me out in certain situations. My route is at five yards, don’t try to push it to seven yards to get the first down. Run the route at five, catch it and if you don’t get the first down, that’s fine, we’re gonna go for it on fourth down,” St. Brown commented. “Being able to understand that aspect kind of has helped our whole offense ‘cause early on we didn’t understand it, but as we kept doing it, it kind of made sense.”

The All-Pro wideout has been catching passes from Goff since entering the league in 2021. Plus, he's formed a symbiotic relationship with Johnson, which, in part, has built him into one of the game's elite receivers. 

“It kind of helps when you have the same coaches for three years. All the same players I’ve been around, the same quarterback, but I feel like we’re all bought in,” St. Brown added.

He's also going into his third season with Jameson Williams as his teammate. St. Brown has high expectations for the third-year pro, who is coming off a 354-yard, two-touchdown campaign in 2023.

"I think he’s gonna have a bunch of 1-on-1 opportunities just because of our style of play," St. Brown said of the Alabama product. "We can run the ball really well, we’ve got guys that use the middle of the field a lot with me, LaPorta, the backs out of the backfield. Sometimes on that outside, it is 1-on-1. I feel bad for anyone that’s trying to run with Jameson Williams, because that guy can run.”