{"id":221296,"date":"2025-10-18T03:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221296\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T03:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:25:07","slug":"deleted-nfl-films-video-about-brian-branch-angers-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221296\/","title":{"rendered":"Deleted NFL Films video about Brian Branch angers Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday night\u2019s game between the Lions and Chiefs sparked a variety of storylines that echoed deep into the week.<\/p>\n

Along the way, the NFL committed an unforced error from its in-house media operation.<\/p>\n

Via MLive.com, NFL Films posted a video<\/a> from the show NFL Turning Point regarding Branch\u2019s \u201clong game<\/a>,\u201d which ended with a blow to the head of Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster. The clip, narrated by ESPN\u2019s Louis Riddick, was deleted after it was posted.<\/p>\n

The league addressed the issue<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNFL Films wants all of its shows to have a distinct voice and point of view,\u201d the NFL said in a statement. \u201cIn the case of NFL Turning Point, that voice and point of view is Louis Riddick\u2019s. He spends time every week with the show\u2019s producers watching each segment and going over the script before narrating them. That particular sequence felt different to NFL Films as part of a 9-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 Branch so it was taken down.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unclear why a clip would seem more critical when isolated from a longer segment containing the exact same content, that\u2019s the league\u2019s position. It\u2019s also the league\u2019s position that this was Riddick\u2019s take, not the NFL\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Riddick apparently didn\u2019t get the memo. He said the segment \u201cwas voiced by me<\/a>,\u201d which implies it wasn\u2019t his \u201cpoint of view.\u201d Riddick also suggested that the end product was the result of a collaboration.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the hot-potato manner in which NFL Films and Riddick seem to be handling the controversy, the Lions are pissed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought it was a pretty weak move,\u201d offensive lineman Dan Skipper told MLive.com. \u201cObviously, they\u2019re protected by the shield, so I can\u2019t speak too much into it. I might already have received a letter \u2014 we\u2019ll see. I\u2019m going to try to avoid receiving a letter here in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, BB is one of our guys, so seeing the public just keep digging is \u2014 I think it\u2019s some [expletive]. I don\u2019t know how many of the million people who saw it actually know BB. I know BB. So they\u2019re going to do what they\u2019re going to do at the end of the day. He\u2019s one of us. He\u2019s our guy. We got his back, and I think hypocrisy is going to be called out in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defensive tackle DJ Reader agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was crazy — it is wild,\u201d Reader told MLive.com. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a video, you\u2019re narrating it. I just thought it was insane and just kind of classless from that game. There were so many other things you could have gone with. You could have gone on a Chiefs highlight and released that. It was weird — just kind of weird energy from the league. From the league that you say is supposed to protect your players and this, that, and the third — whatever you say about it. I just thought it was strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the reality. The league needed to justify its decision to suspend Branch for a critical Monday night game between the 5-1 Buccaneers and 4-2 Lions. And the league owns and operates NFL Films. Anything NFL Films says, the NFL says. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happens when sports leagues own the companies that create content regarding that sport. There\u2019s no independence. There\u2019s no true firewall. <\/p>\n

And the Branch video is just the latest example of it.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s far too late in the game to expect the NFL and other sports leagues to disband their in-house media companies, the audience needs to understand that dynamic and factor it into their decisions regarding the information they\u2019ll choose to trust. <\/p>\n

Usually, NFL-owned media merits skepticism for avoiding touchy subjects. In this case, Big Shield used its owned-and-operated media company not as a shield against criticism of the league, but as a sword against one of its players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday night\u2019s game between the Lions and Chiefs sparked a variety of storylines that echoed deep into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-221296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}