DETROIT — Jared Goff wasn’t satisfied.
The Detroit Lions improved to 3-1 with a 34-10 victory against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, but the veteran quarterback feels he could’ve done some things better — particularly with using All-Pro WR Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Even after connecting with St. Brown on all seven targets for 70 yards and two touchdowns, Goff has even higher expectations for him moving forward.
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“He’s playing well. Would’ve loved to get him more involved a little bit today, but [that’s] just the way the game worked,” said Goff. “Yeah, had those two touchdowns — the second one he really had to work for. The first one was kind of a freebie and him and I will both take those.”
Despite undergoing offseason knee surgery, St. Brown has entered 2025 in peak form. After being held out of the end zone in the Week 1 loss in Green Bay, St. Brown has touchdown catches in each of his last three games.
He has six receiving touchdowns this season, the second most in the first four games of a season in franchise history, trailing Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson in 2011 (eight), per ESPN Research.
St. Brown is also the first NFL player with six receiving touchdowns in his team’s first four games of a season since Atlanta’s Calvin Ridley in 2018.
Goff has been nearly perfect this season targeting St. Brown, with an 87% completion rate and 9.9 yards per attempt in comparison to his 69% completion rate with 6.8 yards per attempt when targeting all other Lions.
Lions coach Dan Campbell describes the connection between Goff and St. Brown as “an art form.”
That chemistry was on display before halftime as St. Brown caught a short pass from Goff with 3:04 remaining in the second quarter for a touchdown to give Detroit a 17-7 edge.
St. Brown grabbed another 8-yard touchdown off another short pass from Goff with 4:09 left in the fourth quarter to extend Detroit’s lead to 34-10.
“That will always be a security blanket, man. Those two guys, what they’ve got, the rapport they have, the connection they have, it’s special,” Campbell said. “And so that, you know having that always is going to make you feel more secure, make you feel better.”
First-year Lions offensive coordinator John Morton has continued to position St. Brown for success with his playcalling, but Goff has worked tirelessly with him on mastering the details of the throws every day as well at practice. And it’s paying off.
Against Baltimore in Week 3, the Lions duo helped seal that primetime victory, 38-30, with a 20-yard completion at the two-minute warning. It converted a fourth-and-2 from the Detroit 49.
Goff and St. Brown continue to strengthen their on-field chemistry by continuing to master both simple and complex route-running to remain on the same page.
“If I throw it a little bit behind him, he’ll slow his body down and it’ll look like I threw it right there,” Goff said on Sept. 18. “And it’s a quarterback’s best friend, and it makes me want to keep throwing it to him when he does that.
“But, he’s as good as they get in our game — I’ve said that a million times — and I’m lucky to play with him.”
St. Brown views Goff as “everything you want in a quarterback” due to his toughness, football IQ and knack for playmaking.
Detroit has totaled 137 points through the first four games and will look to build on that next week on the road against the Cincinnati Bengals.
“I feel like as a quarterback, he’s so in tune to so many other things than I am as a receiver, so for me it’s like I can ask him anything honestly from his point of view,” St. Brown said of Goff. “Whether it’s coverages, what he likes, what he’s seeing, why he’s killing certain plays to get to other plays.
“I’m not too worried about the protection, although sometimes I do have to know if he’s hot or not, so I’ve got to turn my eyes back quicker, and little stuff like that. But for the most part, he has almost all the answers so if I ever have any questions, I always can ask him.”
