Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Lions safety Brian Branch was the target of plenty of criticism after he sparked the melee that unfolded following his team’s loss to the Chiefs. NFL Films decided to pile on with a video criticizing his play before the fight went down, although it didn’t stay up for very long after receiving some backlash of its own.
It’s not rare to see tempers flare during an NFL game, as there’s only so much you can do to prevent tensions boiling over in a sport that revolves around testosterone-fueled beasts routinely hitting each other as hard as they can.
That was the case when the Lions faced off against the Chiefs last Sunday in a showdown that ended with Kansas City earning a 30-17 victory and Brian Branch earning a one-game suspension for punching JuJu Smith-Schuster and sparking a fairly chaotic scene.
Brian Branch started the fight in the field. Brian Branch threw a punch and knocked JuJu Smith-Schuster down. Brian Branch should be suspended. THERE IS NO PLACE IN SPORTS FOR THAT. pic.twitter.com/C8DtVukdlF
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) October 13, 2025
Branch admitted he screwed up while noting the Chiefs were “trying to bully” him the entire game and pointing to a block in the back he took from Schuster at a point in the night where the game was firmly over as the tipping point.
NFL Films decided to do a deeper dive into what transpired before things went off the rails, but the needlessly vindictive breakdown ended up causing a minor controversy of its own.
NFL Films backtracked after releasing a video mocking Brian Branch for his play against the Chiefs before starting a fight
The fight ended up being one of the bigger stories to come out of the meeting between the Chiefs and the Lions, and it’s only natural that NFL Films would highlight it in a recap of the game.
However, plenty of people—including Branch—had an issue with the route it decided to take after a clip narrated by Louis Riddick was posted online on Thursday night.
The @NFL and @NFLFilms hit piece on Brian Branch shall never be forgotten.@LRiddickESPN should be ashamed of himself for narrating this too. pic.twitter.com/PbTBs3T3iB
— Detroit Lions on Tap (@LionsOnTap) October 17, 2025
The clip in question harnesses a strangely malicious tone. Branch was mocked for getting “burned by Travis Kelce’s basketball move” and “juked by Xavier Worthy,” and it also referenced the aforementioned block in the back Schuster delivered by simply referring to it as a “shot.”
The video was roundly criticized by Lions fans as well as plenty of other people who were more than happy to use it as evidence that the NFL is biased toward the Chiefs. It was subsequently taken down from the official channels where it was uploaded shortly after going live, but it has firmly not been scrubbed from the internet.
BroBible has reached out to NFL Films for comment and will update this post if a response is received.