Detroit Lions Brian Branch apologizes for flipping the bird

Three days After flipping the bird at Lambeau Field following an ejection, Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch apologized for losing his cool.

‘I absolutely agree with the call’ Branch told reporters. “My aim was obviously high, but I never intended to aim for the head. Looking ahead, I do have to move my aim down.”

The talented safety indicated that he wanted to draw attention to negative actions on the football field.

“That’s not something I would want people to see, to notice me like that,” Branch said. “That was just a heat wave for me. I apologize to anyone who saw that, and it won’t happen again.”

Branch and Kerby Joseph have received a lot of attention for their aggressiveness and their ball skills.

With Aidan Hutchinson out of the lineup, the 23-year-old has been able to apply some extra pressure from the safety position. The former second-round pick credited defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn with putting the defensive backs in the best position to succeed.

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“I feel like this just puts a lot of pressure on the quarterbacks. You can’t really tell what one of us is going to do every time because we’re going to change it,” Branch said. “And I feel like they know that, and that makes their job hard. Offensive coordinators, I feel like AG (Glenn) puts us in the right spot where we can dominate, dictate what the offense does instead of letting the offense dictate what we’re going to do.”

Corrective actions

Detroit’s coaching staff continues to work with the youngsters safety in being able to take down his target when delivering hits.

“I think that’s hard. The easy answer is, ‘Hey, lower your target.’ But if you’re running at full speed and another guy is running at full speed and all of a sudden his weight drops and the angle changes, because you don’t want to say to guys, ‘Hey, all of a sudden go for their knees.’ We try to sink their target in the sternum, but it’s a bag-bang game, it’s tough,” defensive assistant Jim O’Neil said. “I don’t think he had any malicious intent.”

Then Campbell expressed during his weekly radio interview on 97.1 The ticket that he had talked to Branch about flipping the bird and not doing anything to hurt the team any more, especially after he had already been ejected for a helmet-to-helmet hit.

“Look, you get the flag and he probably gets fined for it,” Campbell said. “That’s part of it, and you don’t want that, but once you deploy your artillery, man, you don’t pull it back. Funnily enough, I’ve seen guys who have tried to back off to avoid hurting someone who, two different times, has torn the meniscus in his knee while trying to put his knee into the ground to keep from getting hurt. to go.

“The most important thing, man, is the punishment afterward,” Campbell continued. “That’s what he and I were talking about, like, ‘Man, you can’t give them the 15 (more penalty yards) after that.’ So lower the target and go through the sternum. But he’ll be fine, man. He’s a great player. No, he’s not a dirty player.”