Earlier this week, the NFL suspended Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch for starting a fight with JuJu Smith-Schuster after their game against the Kansas City Chiefs. On Wednesday, they upheld the suspension when Branch tried to appeal the decision. And on Thursday, NFL Films added insult to injury, posting a weird and insulting video as a part of their “NFL Turning Point” online show.
The video, which tries to put Branch’s frustrating night against the Chiefs into context, comes off as strangely insulting for a video produced by the league. While trying to display Branch’s increasing anger throughout the game, the video unnecessarily shows Branch getting beaten several times [Editor’s note: sometimes incorrectly assigning blame] and missing a tackle or two. They finally get to the actual highlight that is relevant to Branch’s frustrations—when JuJu Smith-Schuster throws an illegal block from the back that Branch specifically pointed to as the reason he was upset.
But perhaps even worse was the odd narration from former NFL player and front office employee Louis Riddick. Both his tone and his choice of words are over-the-top insulting. Here’s a transcript of the short clip:
“It was a long game for Lions safety Brian Branch, number 32. He got burned by (Travis) Kelce’s basketball move. He got showed up by (Patrick) Mahomes. He got juked by Xavier Worthy, and took a shot from JuJu Smith-Schuster. The turning point led to Branch’s boiling point.”
At some point during Thursday evening, the NFL realized the inappropriateness of insulting their own player like this and took down the video. However, we saved a version of it, in case you want to see it below:
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