It Will Be Brother vs. Brother as Packers Elevate St. Brown for Game vs. Lions

The roster move sets up a brother-vs.-brother receiver battle with Green Bay's Equanimeous St. Brown and Detroit's Amon-Ra St. Brown.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers elevated receiver Equanimeous St. Brown from the practice squad in time for Monday night’s home opener against the Detroit Lions.

His brother, receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, was a fourth-round out of USC by the Lions in this year’s draft.

Equanimeous St. Brown was a sixth-round pick out of Notre Dame in 2018. After catching 21 passes for 328 yards (zero drops) in a solid rookie season, St. Brown spent all of 2019 on injured reserve and caught seven passes for 117 yards and his first career touchdown (but two drops) in 2020.

St. Brown entered training camp battling Devin Funchess for a spot on the roster behind Davante Adams, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb and Amari Rodgers. Instead, neither player made the roster and Malik Taylor got the sixth spot. St. Brown cleared waivers and joined the practice squad.

St. Brown missed all three preseason games, leaving him unable to build upon a promising ending to last season.

“He’s seen ‘17’ and ‘13’ and ‘83’ really set the standard of our room and turn it up a notch,” receivers coach Jason Vrable said late last season of Adams, Lazard and Valdes-Scantling. “Sitting out, he realized, ‘If I’m going to be out here with these guys, I’ve got to be playing at this level.’ Just his attention to detail, his competitiveness and his confidence is at an all-time high since I’ve been around him and known him. I told him, ‘I’m proud of you, man, for fighting back through the injury and where you’re at right now. Let’s keep trending upward and get 1 percent better every day.’ He gave me the thumbs up back in the text.”

As a rookie. he caught three passes for 89 yards in a loss at Detroit. He added one catch for 15 yards in a win at Detroit last season. While not a position-for-position switch, he figures to take the spot of tight end Josiah Deguara (concussion) on the gameday roster.

In his NFL debut last week for the Lions, Amon-Ra St. Brown caught 2-of-4 targets for 23 yards against San Francisco. He had a gain of 20 on the Lions’ final drive to put them in scoring position in the waning moments. He played 59 snaps in the game (64 percent) and could be in line for more playing time on Monday, Detroit coach Dan Campbell said this week.

“Amon-Ra did a good job, but it was Amon-Ra’s first NFL football game against a very good team, good defense,” Campbell said. “So, he’s no different than all of those other guys. We just – it’s something to build off of. I thought he really competed. I thought he fought. There are just so many little details to it he’s got to clean up in his game.”

The brothers were profiled by ESPN.com this week.

“It’s gonna be dope. Exciting,” Amon-Ra told ESPN. “Obviously, I wish my brother was on the active roster so I could play against him, but even still, just watching my brother play in Green Bay the last three years and finally getting a chance to play against Aaron Rodgers, guys who I have watched my whole life ... Davante Adams, a great receiver, and going against my brother is going to be dope.”