Tarik Black is the kind of name that can cut through camp noise, but Amon-Ra St. Brown made the larger point plain: the Detroit Lions feel more motivated entering the 2026 season. He said the edge is back after a 9-8 finish last year, and that feeling starts with the way the team is handling training camp.
"I would say I feel like we're a bit more motivated. I feel we have that edge. I'm not saying we ever lost it, but I feel it's back," St. Brown said during a FOX 2 interview at Community Partner Day practice. He added, "And we felt like last year, maybe we weren't the underdogs as much as we wanted to be. We feel like, we're back in that spot."
Allen Park and the 9-8 finish
At the Allen Park Meijer Performance Facility, St. Brown said camp has already brought the kind of internal pressure the Lions wanted. "No one's really talking about us," he said. "But we're in training camp. Dog days are summer for us. It's going great. Camp is going great, the competition is there. Guys want to be great. And I think we've got the right group of guys to hopefully make some splashes here."
That line matters because the Lions finished 9-8 last season and spent the offseason trying to get back to the playoffs. St. Brown's view is that the roster is not being carried by outside attention right now; it is being pushed by competition inside the building, which is usually where a real reset shows up first.
Munich, Germany on Nov. 15
On Nov. 15, the Lions will play the New England Patriots in Munich, Germany, and St. Brown said he sees that trip as bigger than a single game. "I think it's going to be great for us, great for us as a team, the NFL as a whole," he said.
St. Brown also tied the game to his own background, saying, "I feel like me being half-German, I feel like it's my duty to kind of grow the game in Germany (and) I feel this is the first step towards it." He added, "I'm just happy to play football in Germany, have a lot of family around, and have my teammates with me."
The scheduling gives the Lions a visible international spot before the 2026 preseason opener against the Bengals on Thursday, and it puts St. Brown in a position to represent both the team and his own roots. For a club trying to look sharper after 9-8, that kind of stage only works if the camp edge he described turns into a cleaner start.
St. Brown Foundation
A year and a half ago, St. Brown and his brothers started the St. Brown Foundation, which focuses on literacy, global experiences and health and wellness. He said, "At the end of the day, not everyone's going to be a professional athlete and not everyone is gonna make it to college" and "School is something everyone goes to, that everyone can use and can further them in life."
That same logic runs through his football message: school, work and repetition all matter more than the noise around a roster battle. With Thursday's preseason opener and the Munich trip ahead, the Lions do not need a slogan. They need the edge St. Brown says has already returned.
