Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press

INDIANAPOLIS -- Calvin Johnson’s retirement left a void in the Lions’ red-zone offense, and one game into the season Eric Ebron looks like a prime candidate to fill it.

Ebron played 60 of a possible 66 snaps in his return from an ankle injury Sunday. He caught five passes for 46 yards and scored a 6-yard touchdown to help the Lions beat the Indianapolis Colts, 39-35.

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"How good does it feel to get back in the end zone?" Ebron said, repeating a reporter's question in the locker room after the game. "I’ll be there more times than often, so I ain’t worried about it."

Never a big touchdown producer in college, Ebron emerged as a red-zone threat last year.

He caught touchdown passes in each of his first two games before injuring his knee in a Week 4 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, and finished with five touchdowns in 14 games.

On Sunday, three of Ebron's five catches either came in the red zone or moved the ball inside the Colts' 20-yard line, including a diving 13-yard grab on third-and-10 early in the second quarter that set up Dwayne Washington's 1-yard TD run.

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“He’s got stature to lean on you and use that as leverage, but he’s also got the speed to run away from you, as well,” Lions coach Jim Caldwell said Monday. “So he does a little bit of everything well. He’s still a young player who has tools, and we’ve just got to keep him headed in the right direction.”

Ebron, who lauded his own play after the game -- "We got great receivers, we got a great tight end, we got a great kicker and we just had to go out there and execute," he said -- said he was happy to back in the lineup after sitting out the preseason.

He was the only player other than running backs to score a touchdown for the Lions on Sunday.

"I’m just doing my job, man," Ebron said. "And no one really cares for it, so it is what it is."

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Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

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