Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch’s ejection for his role in a postgame brawl during Sunday night’s game in Kansas City has become a hot button topic for NFL and Lions fans ever since, with Lions players Alim McNeill and Dan Skipper expressing their anger in recent days.
Branch was ejected for striking Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and suspended for this Monday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Detroit.
On Thursday, NFL Films posted and later took down a video of Branch’s long night against the Chiefs narrated by Louis Riddick that was described as a “hit piece” against the Lions star.
A day later, former NFL punter and talk show host Pat McAfee hit the airwaves to share an update from NFL Films on their decision to remove the controversial video.
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McAfee Shares Update From NFL Films
McAfee shared a Branch video controversy update from NFL Films on his X channel Friday after reaching out to the organization.
“We want all of our shows to have a distinct voice and point-of-view,” McAfee said as he read the message from NFL Films’ perspective.
“In the case of ‘Turning Point,’ that voice and point-of-view was Louis Riddick’s. He spends time every week with the show’s producers watching each segment and going over the script before narrating.
“That particular sequence felt different to us as part of a nine-minute breakdown of the Lions-Chiefs game than it did as a standalone excerpt on social media. On X it felt overly critical to Brian so we took it down,” McAfee added.
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McAfee: NFL Wanted to Provide Context
McAfee added additional insight from his conversation with the organization.
“I think, they didn’t say there in the exact text to me but in the conversation I was having, I think they were trying to provide more in their head, they wanted to give context for Brian Branch on why this situation happened, but it obviously didn’t happen, so that’s why they took it down,” he said.
“So, I don’t want to be here just speaking for NFL Films, but it feels like somebody should in this world, because NFL Films is an asset to to us, not a bad thing to the entire football world,” to which co-host A.J. Hawk agreed.
“Yeah NFL Films, they’re not the people to go after, that try to do that stuff I think to make people look bad. It was like the lowlights of Branch in that video,” Hawk said.
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