First, the league took the extraordinary step of intervening and taking away a touchdown from the Lions in their game against the Chiefs last Sunday, when the officials on the field didn’t even call a penalty.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the league, through its NFL Films property, rubbed the Lions’ faces in the dirt.
The NFL Films video, narrated by ESPN’s Louis Riddick, severely criticized Lions safety Brian Branch.
Here is a portion of Riddick’s commentary in the video.
“It was a long game for Lions safety Brian Branch,” Riddick said. “He got burned by [Travis] Kelce’s basketball move. Got showed up by Mahomes. Got juked by Xavier Worthy. And took a shot from JuJu Smith-Schuster…”
Despite Branch’s clear and admitted guilt in provoking the ugly fight at the end of the game that led to his one-game suspension, without pay. That talk of their teammate getting “juked” and “burned” did not sit well with Lions coach Dan Campbell or team captain Amon-Ra St. Brown.
“We overcome adversity, and listen, that’s their brother, man,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell . “And if you’re gonna attack their brother, that’s what they’re gonna do. So, you know, we got a tight-knit group, and I already mentioned this, man. BB’s a good dude. So he’s paying for what happened, and he’ll be back, ready to go for Minnesota.”
Lions defender D.J. Reader was directly critical of Riddick, given that the ESPN talker is also a former player.
“The narration was just crazy to me,” Reader. “I couldn’t see myself being a former player and saying the words that he said in a narration, especially when he played the game. These guys get up there like they didn’t play before, and we didn’t get to watch them play. Like, we watched all these guys who make these rules, who are on the committees…And we see what y’all did. Like, YouTube is a thing. We can see it.
“It’s always interesting and funny to me. I think a lot of people do stuff for clicks now, and it’s just what the world has come to today. It is what it is.”
Riddick posted an apology for his comments on his X account.
But still, why was the video made in the first place? Where was the NFL Films video about Patrick Mahomes giving up a pick-six in the Jacksonville game? Guess they just forgot about that one…
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