Typically, NFL games end in pretty straight-forward fashion. One team wins, the other loses, both shake hands and move on.
On Sunday night, Brian Branch had other ideas. The Detroit Lions safety refused to shake hands with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes after his team’s 30-17 defeat, sparking JuJu Smith-Schuster to confront him.
The conversation did not go well: Branch immediately threw a haymaker toward the Chiefs wideout, leading to a fight between members of both teams. Chiefs players starting swarming Branch, Lions players came in, all the good stuff.
What led to the altercation, though? According to Branch himself, an uncalled block in the back earlier in the fourth quarter is to blame.
“I got blocked in the back illegally,” Branch said. “It was in front of the ref and the ref didn’t do anything. And stuff like that. I could have gotten hurt off of that play.”
“Just blocking him, I’m just doing my job. I play between the whistles, and after the game he took advantage of what he did,” explained Smith-Schuster.
Even though Branch might have had reason to be frustrated given the uncalled penalty and the final result of the game, his head coach did not make any excuses for him after the game.
“I love Brian Branch, but what he did is inexcusable and it’s not going to be accepted here,” said Dan Campbell during his postgame presser. “It’s not what we do, it’s not what we’re about. I apologized to coach [Andy] Reid and the Chiefs, and [Smith-]Schuster. That’s not OK. That’s not what we do here, and it’s not going to be OK. He knows it, our team knows it. That’s not what we do.”
Their loss to the Chiefs dropped the Lions to 4-2 on the year and into second place in the NFC North behind the 3-1-1 Packers.
