Lions' Amon-Ra St. Brown pays off friendly wager he quips was made 'outside the facility'
Julian Okwara had the outfit ordered before the Notre Dame-USC game was over, and when Amon-Ra St. Brown put it on Thursday, Okwara was there to make sure it fit just right.
St. Brown, the Detroit Lions' leading receiver and a former USC standout, paid off a friendly wager with Okwara, a Notre Dame grad, for the Irish's 48-20 win over the Trojans last Saturday by wearing a leprechaun outfit for his weekly media session Thursday.
"We don’t do bets in this facility," St. Brown said, making light of the NFL's gambling policy. "We made an agreement. It was outside the facility, so I called J.O., FaceTimed him, and he said if S.C. wins he has to be Tommy Trojan. I said, 'OK,' and he said if Notre Dame wins I got to be the — I don’t know what they call this. Whatever this green thing is, and I said, 'Sure.' So, yeah, we made an agreement outside the facility, and that’s that."
Okwara said he ordered the outfit off Amazon last week — "Amazon Prime got it here by today so shout out to Jeff Bezos," he said — and had it laid out in front of St. Brown's locker when St. Brown came in from catching his regular 202 balls of the Jugs machine after practice.
"I don’t think this fits, bro," St. Brown joked as he stared at the shiny green costume on the ground.
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"No, it’s gonna fit, it’s stretchy," Okwara said as he pulled out his cell phone to record the process. "You're a man of your word."
"Since we don’t bet for money, we bet for costumes, so he made a bet with me that USC was going to beat Notre Dame," Okwara said. "Clearly, the whole world saw that Notre Dame put on a show."
Okwara said the terms of the bet were that St. Brown "had to be Irish for the day," though he ripped the costume off as soon as he was done talking with reporters.
"He's got to do it while the camera’s on him, he can't go private, he got to do it right here and I'm going to have a couple questions for him on the side and make sure I get things straightened up with him while the camera’s on him," Okwara said. "He had a big game so I want to make sure the whole world sees his beautiful fit."
St. Brown set career highs with 12 catches for 124 yards and a touchdown in the Lions' win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week, a game Okwara said "made up for" USC's performance.
St. Brown, who leads the Lions with 38 catches and 455 yards receiving this season, said his goal is to have an even bigger day Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.
"He wasn’t too happy before he went to bed Saturday," Okwara said. "He was able to sweeten his mind a little bit the next day with some touchdowns and some yards. He made up for it. But yeah, this is his L for today."
Contact Dave Birkett at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.