Lions Week 17 stock report: St. Brown shines, Boyle struggles

St. Brown just keeps making plays for the Lions.

Just as it has happened a handful of times this season, the Detroit Lions seemed to have everything go wrong within all four quarters of football. Or at least that is how things appeared to the naked eye when the Lions were dominated on the road by the Seattle Seahawks, 51-29.

Let’s take a look at the Week 17 stock report immediately following the game against Seattle.

Stock Up: Amon-Ra St. Brown

St. Brown posted another impressive stat line against Seattle: eight catches, 111 yards, and a touchdown. He also contributed in the ground game with two carries for 23 yards, including this highlight-worthy score where St. Brown mashed that B-button on his way to the end zone.

And what’s more impressive is that despite St. Brown not being a secret anymore, he continues to produce on an offense that doesn’t have many other options through the air right now.

Stock Down: Lions’ run defense

Another week where the Lions seemingly had zero answers for an opponent’s running game. Seattle got what they wanted on the ground, whenever they wanted, to the tune of 265 yards on 41 carries, good enough for 6.5 yards per carry.

And as we know, this wasn’t the first time the Lions have been dominated on the ground this year—see Week 8 against the Eagles for a similar type of dominance.

No doubt this defense will look much different next year after another offseason of roster turnover, but this trend on defense against the run is concerning. There’s a lot to address there for general manager Brad Holmes as he heads into the 2022 offseason.

Stock Down: Tim Boyle

I think we have seen enough from Boyle to conclude that those initial reports from the Green Bay area about Boyle being a potential starter for the Lions, were just slightly off.

It isn’t easy for anyone to play in Seattle. The rain was coming down and despite being out of the playoff race, it was loud when the Seahawks were on defense.

With that said, Boyle characteristically struggled with ball placement all game, and had more issues with his decision-making, throwing three interceptions in the process.

Stock Down: Will Harris

Safety. Nickel corner. Outside corner. He does have a lot of positional versatility—I will give Will Harris that much.

But I would hope his time as a starter comes to an end after next week. He is an athletic specimen, but man, he just can’t seem to figure it out from a football perspective.

This coaching staff seems to really like him, so he very well could be on the roster in 2022. But I would hope it’s in a reserve, special teams, or situational capacity.