The Lions signed their No. 1 receiver, Amon-Ra St. Brown, to a big contract extension this offseason. But their No. 2 receiver from last year, Josh Reynolds, took a contract offer in Denver. And they need to see another receiver step up and replace him.
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Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said that after St. Brown and Jameson Williams, who appears to be No. 2 in the pecking order, the Lions will have plenty of balls to go around for other receivers if someone steps up and earns those opportunities.
“Something we’ve talked about with this skill group, those opportunities go elsewhere now, and we need guys to step up and rise to the occasion just like he did,” Johnson said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.
The list of receivers who might get more opportunities includes Kalif Raymond, Donovan Peoples-Jones and Antoine Green.
“It might be someone that didn’t have as much production last year, say an Antoine Green or a Peoples-Jones or some of the guys that we had on the scout team,” Johnson said. “Or it could be some of the other guys. Maybe it’s another carry for David Montgomery or [Jahmyr] Gibbs or it’s another target for [Sam] LaPorta. It could be — we might have to spread it out that way. So, that’s what we’re trying to find out here this springtime and in training camp is not just who the guys are that we’ll hang our hats on, but also how we distribute those carries and those targets as the season goes.”
The Lions have most of their top players back from last year’s team that made the NFC Championship Game, but the receiving corps beyond St. Brown is a question mark, and it’s a question they’ll seek to answer in the next three months.
