Strategic Move: Why the Lions Had Amon-Ra St. Brown Return Punts vs. Colts

The Detroit Lions were forced to turn to their All-Pro wide receiver to return punts in their Week 12 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.

When Kalif Raymond went down with a foot injury and was ruled out, the Lions put Amon-Ra St. Brown back deep to field the punts later in the game. He wound up returning two punts, totaling 15 yards as the team’s emergency punt returner.

With Raymond’s status in jeopardy for Detroit’s Thanksgiving game against the Chicago Bears, Detroit will need to find a replacement for their top return man. With some time to adjust the roster and prepare, Detroit could turn to a member of the practice squad or external addition to handle returns during Raymond’s absence.

When asked during his weekly radio interview, coach Dan Campbell explained that the decision to put St. Brown back to take punts stemmed from just how reliable the wideout is.

“Well, you know why Saint was in there? It’s because Leaf got hurt,” Campbell said. “So now that we’re in another week, we’re gonna have probably a different returner. And if we need Saint in a critical then we’ll use him. But that was really why he was in there, because he’s sure-handed and we know he’ll get the job done. And he’s just so damn reliable. If he wasn’t that reliable, maybe we wouldn’t have put him back there.”

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Raymond isn’ the only injury concern the Lions have ahead of the upcoming game. Several players, including St. Brown, popped up as estimated non-participants in walkthrough Monday. One of them was left tackle Taylor Decker, who left briefly in Sunday’s game.

Decker missed the Lions’ Week 10 game against the Houston Texans and was replaced by Dan Skipper, while Penei Sewell was kept at his natural position of right tackle.

“A short week, we thought about both. The walkthrough (Monday), we left Sewell at right,” Campbell explained. “But since we’re not getting full-speed reps anyway, it’s real easy for us to just go ahead, throw him over and let him roll. So we’re not 100 percent on that yet, but I can tell you we left him at right yesterday.”

The Lions were able to own most of Sunday’s game, with the Colts only getting field goals on two of their first three drives before being shut out for the remainder of the game.

Campbell explained how he was greatful that the Colts elected to take the ball after winning the coin toss, which allowed the defense to take the field early and generate some momentum with a red zone stop.

“Yeah, it was awesome because we wanted to play defense,” Campbell said. “I wanted to play defense first, so it was perfect. It depends. What is the look of that week? The opponent? The energy that we want to start with that week, where maybe you feel like you’ve got an advantage or you think you can gain some early momentum or set the tone. So I think you just go throughout the week and get a feel of that. But definitely wanted to play defense first and it worked out great.”