Detroit Lions’ Rookie Jermar Jefferson savors 1st career TD; bye week schedule about rest

Jermar Jefferson slammed into his own blocker and barreled across the goal line midway through the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 44-6 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles when his mind went briefly blank.

A seventh-round pick out of Oregon State, Jefferson dropped the ball as he stood up to celebrate his first career touchdown and was on his way off the field when his teammate, Trinity Benson, told him he left something behind.

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“Getting my first NFL touchdown, I had the chills after,” Jefferson said Monday. “I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ And the one thing, I think I left the ball there. And then T.B. and Amon-Ra (St. Brown) was like, ‘Get the ball, bro. This is your first football, first NFL touchdown.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, snap, I forgot.'”

Jefferson, who plans to give the ball to his father, Herb, has played sparingly for the Detroit Lions in the first half of the season and remains buried on the depth chart behind D’Andre Swift and Jamaal Williams.

But if his second career carry is any indication, better days should be ahead.

Jefferson was inactive for six of the Lions’ first seven games and played only on special teams in the seventh.

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On Sunday, with Williams nursing a thigh injury, Jefferson saw his first career action on offense. He played 11 snaps, caught four passes for 23 yards, had two rushes and scored on that 8-yard run.

Jefferson said it was “a little depressing” to not crack the playing rotation the first seven weeks of the season. But he used that time to sharpen his special teams skills and become “an educated person in the game of football (by) watching the older guys and just learning from them.”

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