Amon-Ra St. Brown’s helmet has been a topic of conversation lately.
The Lions wideout joined an ongoing touchdown celebration trend Sunday after pulling in a three-yard reception for the score, hitting a headstand directly on the crown of his helmet in the end zone with his arms stuck up to his sides.
All of the attention surrounding St. Brown’s headgear has raised a question about some of its decor. The receiver has a sticker of the German flag on the back left side of his helmet, directly beside the American flag, prompting many to ask about his nationality.
Here’s everything to know about why the Lions receiver has a German flag on his helmet, including whether he’s from Germany or not.
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Is Amon-Ra St. Brown from Germany?
While St. Brown himself was born in Anaheim Hills, Calif., his mother is a native of Leverkusen, Germany.
Miriam Brown née Steyer raised her three sons — Amon-Ra, Equanimeous and Osiris — to speak German and French as well as English, and each of them has German citizenship.
Amon-Ra St. Brown posted a picture of the flags on his helmet 15 minutes ago. 🙃🤔 pic.twitter.com/w1uMELmUIu
— Jeanna Trotman (@JeannaTrotmanTV) October 8, 2022
His father, John Brown, is a two-time Mister Universe champion from the 1980s. Brown and Steyer met at a fitness fair in Germany in 1989 and eventually married, destined to have super-athletes for kids.
St. Brown and his family spent time overseas growing up, and the receiver even attended Bayer Leverkusen — the local professional soccer team — summer camps when he played the sport as a child.
Along with Equanimeous, St. Brown actually hosted his own camp, a football clinic, in Cologne, Germany, before the 2023 season.
“There was a huge amount of interest and the whole thing was a lot of fun,” he told Deutschland.de in August. “I always really love coming back to Germany. It reminds me of when I was young.”
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NFL players from Germany
Interestingly, St. Brown is just one of many current and retired NFL players with ties to Germany.
According to USA Today, the league maintains a list of 84 players who were born in Germany and played at least one regular-season game. Only one, however, has found himself in the Hall of Fame: Steelers defensive tackle Ernie Stautner, who played in Pittsburgh from 1950-63.
At the beginning of the 2024 preseason, there were four German-born players in the NFL, not including those like St. Brown and Vikings safety Josh Metellus, who also dons a German flag sticker, with childhood and family connections to the country.
Since offensive lineman Devery Hamilton was waived by Pittsburgh on Aug. 26 and defensive tackle David Bada was sent to the Lions IR with an Achilles injury the next day, only two remain, and both are on practice squads.
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Marcel Dabo arrived in Indianapolis in 2022 after going through the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program. Recruited from the Stuttgart Surge in Germany, the 24-year-old safety was waived by the Colts the same day Bada was sent to the IR this preseason, then he was resigned to the practice squad for the regular campaign.
Fullback Jakob Johnson is a member of the Giants practice squad and also an entrant through the Pathway. He joined the Patriots as an undrafted free agent in April 2019 and became the first player out of the program to be activated for an NFL game in September.
After two more years in New England, Johnson spent 2022 and 2023 with Las Vegas before signing with New York in August 2024. Now on the Giants practice squad, Johnson announced in February 2022 that he was investing in the Surge, his former German-based American football club and the same team Dabo played for.
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