The Detroit Lions locker room isn’t happy. Earlier this week, an NFL Films video hit social media with a one-minute clip, narrated by ESPN’s Louis Riddick. It showed a montage of safety Brian Branch’s worst plays and reactions from the Lions’ 30-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Within hours, the league deleted it. But it was too late.

Amon-Ra St. Brown couldn’t believe what he saw. “I thought that video was crazy. I don’t know why it was released, the reasoning behind it,” he said. “Brian Branch is an awesome dude. In the building, he’s one of the nicest dudes, he’s quiet, you never see him really get mad. He’s always smiling. He made a mistake, and he knows it, and he apologized, and I don’t know why it’s still getting dragged along, but I don’t think that video was right.”

The NFL suspended Branch for one game without pay after his hit on Chiefs wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster led to a brief post-game fight at Arrowhead Stadium. That means Branch will miss the matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But St. Brown wasn’t alone in speaking up.

Cornerback Terrion Arnold, on his podcast Closed on Sundays, gave a glimpse into Branch’s mindset.

“After this happened, B.B. came into the facility and we talked. You could see it all over his face, man,” Arnold said. “The dude really felt bad for what he did… what B.B. did was wrong. Absolutely. Us being professional athletes, having to hold ourselves to a higher standard, we have to carry ourselves with a certain class.”

Finally, head coach Dan Campbell addressed it during his weekly radio spot.

“Brian Branch is not a bad person. He’s not a thug, he’s not. He made a mistake,” Campbell said. The coach made it clear: accountability matters, but so does support. “He knows he needs to be better, and he will. He’s going to learn from this, he’s going to be better for all of this.”

However, the NFL Films also shared an official statement on the situation.

NFL Films’ official Brian Branch statement

During The Pat McAfee Show, McAfee read a message straight from NFL Films explaining why the video was deleted. “We want all of our shows to have a distinct voice and point-of-view,” McAfee said, sharing the league’s official stance.

It was clear the NFL wanted to control the tone around the situation, and not let social media decide the story.

“In the case of ‘Turning Point,’ that voice and point-of-view was Louis Riddick’s,” McAfee added.

“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.”

But McAfee didn’t stop there.

He said from his own chat with the organization that the intent might’ve been to “add context” about why Branch reacted the way he did, but that message never came through. So the post ended up doing more harm than good.

Finally, McAfee defended the brand itself. “I don’t want to just speak for NFL Films, but somebody should,” he said, calling it “an asset to the football world.” Co-host A.J. Hawk agreed too.

And just like that, the debate moved from blame to perspective,  with fans across the Motor City still wondering what happens next.