If the one game suspension for Detroit Lions’ defensive back Brian Branch wasn’t enough, the NFL Films doubled down on the misery by releasing an insulting video showing Branch at the wrong end. But Lions’ head coach Dan Campbell has decided he isn’t going to keep quite on this matter.

“If you attack their brother, that’s what they’re going to do.” Campbell said on locker room’s response to the Brian Branch situation and video.

By brother, Campbell meant the Kansas City Chiefs. And Branch was suspended for one game without pay after he hit Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster on the helmet after the game.

NFL Films runs a series called Turning Point, which showcases players’ exceptional feats of athletic prowess. But that was not the case when they released Brian Branch’s video, as it was an insult to Branch, not a showcase of his abilities.

The video was voiced over by ESPN analyst Louis Riddick and began with Branch’s locker room statement after the altercation: “I am tired of people doing stuff into the play.”

But from there, a montage began of Branch being beaten on plays, missing tackles, or committing coverage errors. The montage even had a clip of Patrick Mahomes spinning the ball at Branch’s feet after a touchdown run.

But that was not it, as Riddick used phrases like “He got burned… He got shown up… Got juked…” in the video. Although the video even featured the illegal block by JuJu Smith-Schuster, its overall tone was a direct insult to Brian Branch.

Minutes after the video dropped, backlash poured in from fans, media, and players, forcing the NFL to delete it. Several Lions players voiced their frustration. “I thought that video was crazy,” said wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. Defensive lineman DJ Reader questioned the league’s stance, asking, “If you don’t want to glorify it, then why release a new video about it?”

By deleting the clip, the NFL practically admitted it was a bad call. But soon after, both the league and Louis Riddick stepped forward to explain and later removed.

NFL’s clarification on the deleted video

After the NFL deleted the video from X, Riddick, the video’s narrator, said the main objective of the Turning Point series is to cover both the good and the bad events, and that there was no intention to misrepresent Brian Branch.

Riddick admitted the short clip could easily look like a dig at the Lions or Brian Branch. The NFL backed him up, releasing its own statement to explain why the video was deleted.

“We want all of our shows to have a distinct voice and point of view,” the NFL said. “In the case of Turning Point, that voice and point of view is Louis Riddick’s. He spends time every week with the show’s producers, watching each segment and going over the script before narrating.

NFL further explained: “That particular sequence felt different to us, as part of a nine-minute breakdown of the Lions-Chief’s game, than it did as a standalone excerpt on social media. On X, it felt overly critical to Brian. So, we took it down.”

It didn’t matter what Riddick meant to show or whether someone edited to look like a jab at Branch. Fans didn’t take it well. Things got worse when the NFL deleted the clip, which only made it seem like they were admitting fault. But once it’s online, it’s forever. One fan summed it up perfectly after reposting the clip: “You don’t get to put the toothpaste back in the tube, NFL.”