{"id":220821,"date":"2025-10-13T05:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/220821\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T05:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:50:09","slug":"dan-campbell-calls-brian-branchs-postgame-conduct-inexcusable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/220821\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Campbell calls Brian Branch’s postgame conduct “inexcusable”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A brawl marred the completion of Sunday night\u2019s Lions-Chiefs game. The league undoubtedly will have plenty to say about it. Lions coach Dan Campbell had the first word regarding the melee that unfolded after Lions safety Brian Branch struck Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster in the face<\/a> as Smith-Schuster was extending a hand to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Brian Branch but what he did is inexcusable,\u201d Campbell told reporters. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not gonna be accepted here. It\u2019s not what we do, it\u2019s not what we\u2019re about. I apologize to Coach [Andy] Reid and the Chiefs and, you know, [Smith-]Schuster. That\u2019s not OK. That\u2019s not what we do here. And it\u2019s not gonna be OK. He nknows it. Our team knows it. That\u2019s not what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league undoubtedly will pick through the many available camera angles in order to decide which players will be fined, and whether any should be suspended.<\/p>\n

If there are suspensions, they should begin with Branch. The game was over. The time for any and all physical contact had ended.<\/p>\n

Although the NFL went relatively easy on former Washington tackle Trent Williams for striking former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman<\/a> in the face after a 2012 playoff game (Williams was fined only $7,875<\/a>), the league has emphasized sportsmanship this season. There\u2019s no bigger display of bad sportsmanship than for players to attack each other after the clock has reached zero. At a time when players should be saying \u201cgood game\u201d to each other, hitting an opponent (and sparking a full-blown fracas) is the worst possible look.<\/p>\n

The NFL claims to take seriously the messages that the highest form of football sends to all lower levels. If that\u2019s the case, it will have no choice but to send the strongest possible message to Branch \u2014 and to anyone else who threw a punch or attacked another player following the conclusion of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brawl marred the completion of Sunday night\u2019s Lions-Chiefs game. The league undoubtedly will have plenty to say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-220821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}