At the NFL combine in 2023, a coveted defensive back from Alabama sat in a room stuffed with coaches and executives from the worst professional football team this century. Brian Branch had starred for a college football power that rarely lost. But as he listened to these men, he didn’t think what would have been obvious only two springs earlier. He didn’t see the franchise they were lifting as the team that rarely won.
Instead, he listened. And, as he listened, the overhaul in progress became clearer and inspiring. The Detroit Lions laid out their blueprint for football domination that afternoon. They started with an ethos: a roster shaped with talented underdogs. No fictional Rudys, to be clear, but talents, real talents. All had been, for one reason or another, overlooked, underappreciated or unfairly appraised. Their head coach, Dan Campbell, promised to hold each to strict, inflexible standards. But within those firm parameters, he empowered them, his underdogs. They would toil endlessly but without ego, would hold each other accountable, would present toughness and discipline and will. All would own a piece of an NFL rebuild without precedent; if, that is, they could turn this plan into reality.
Still, no portion of their presentation enticed Branch more than the desired end point—the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history and Detroit’s first professional football championship since 1957, or more than 43 years before his birth. Branch didn’t just hear the Lions espouse such improbable notions. They didn’t sound like employees of a franchise that had just finished a 9–8 season, which, even then, marked massive improvement from the 3-13-1 campaign two years before.
Branch heard the Lions say all of these things, none of which squared, in any way, with what their record said. But he believed them.
He couldn’t control which team selected him. But in regard to one team that rarely gave its steady, loyal, heroically patient fanbase reason to publicly showcase its football affiliation, he had reached two understandings: Detroit was on the upswing and he wanted in.
As Branch detailed the events of those months this past June, he sat atop a stool inside Mom’s Spaghetti. This downtown eatery serves pasta four ways—with sauce, with meatballs, with vegan meatballs or in glorious, caloric sandwich form. He’s here because Michigan is home now after Detroit traded up in Round 2 to select him at pick No. 45. He’s twirling a plate of spaghetti, while gazing across the street at Comerica Park, home to MLB’s Detroit Tigers, 11-time American League winners, four-time World Series champions. Branch seems lost in thought, at points, which makes sense. He’s considering everything in front of him, like the 2024 season and the grand, potentially historic, possibilities ahead.
These Lions—the Detroit, hardly-make-the-playoffs, fans-wear-paper-bags-over-their-heads, never-ready-for-primetime, Lions—are poised to fashion the greatest season in the history of the NFL’s worst franchise. There’s no other way to frame it. Not in the Super Bowl era, at least, where no other team comes anywhere close to Detroit’s futility.
That’s changing, though, because of the plan Detroit’s brass detailed to Branch and a million other factors, such as, say, how well he played in his rookie season. “Destiny,” he calls the surge, “the kind that’s falling into place.”
His words would of course be examined three months later, starting on Sept. 8. Again opposite the Los Angeles Rams, in their season opener, at home, the Lions roared into the 2024 season.
No, they didn’t dominate another football team with realistic playoff aspirations. They let another lead slip in the second half. The Rams went up, 20–17, with only 4:30 remaining in the fourth quarter. But Detroit—this team, under Campbell—is exactly what he promised. “Find a way” is too simplistic. It doesn’t capture how these Lions, Campbell’s lions—this, from a coach, who really did ask ownership for a pet lion—swagger into games, wobble in most instances and just … uncover ways to chop deficits and force turnovers and inch forward, until they’re somehow again in front.
It worked again Sunday, this formula that’s not really the formula they’re intending to create. Detroit came back, tying the game on a field goal and winning it with a David Montgomery touchdown plunge in OT.
The Rams even outgained the Lions, but that defense, Detroit’s intentionally reshaped defense, had a solid night—three punts forced, two sacks, one turnover, one fourth-down stop. That’s more than enough for the Lions to win more than a few football games.
In this one, Branch—given the injury, the surgery and his time away—appeared beyond schedule in terms of adjusting to a new position, more versatility and limited practice time to work on both. Then he showed up and made five tackles, swarmed ball carries, batted away a pass attempt and roamed all over the field. Much more on all of that, below …
First, a fact check is in order. The one prompted by something Branch says at the spaghetti joint founded by a Detroit icon, Eminem. Branch’s football career would seem to hold more in common with a rap star of international renown than the Lions’ stated underdog ethos. Not so, he says, pointing to how scouts and evaluators judged his talents before Nick Saban proved them wrong.
Branch grew up in Georgia, surrounded by major college football talent. It took time for him to climb recruiting lists and become a four-star prospect ranked among the nation’s best safeties. That rise, in his mind, took longer than necessary. And, even when Alabama stamped its approval on his résumé, Branch still came in as part of the Crimson Tide’s vaunted 2020 recruiting class. He fit alongside players such as Bryce Young (No. 1-ranked quarterback), Chris Braswell (No. 3 defensive end) and so many others. But it wasn’t like his signing, by itself, seized national attention.
In Tuscaloosa, Branch made immediate impacts. He played in 12 games throughout his true freshman season, started three times and snagged two interceptions, tying for third-most among freshmen in the mighty SEC. In 2021, he led the Crimson Tide in pass break-ups (nine), made 55 tackles and recovered a fumble in the national championship game. In ’22, he assumed the most critical role in Alabama’s defense, its star position, where versatility matters above all. Multiple organizations named him first-team All-American after 90 tackles (14 for losses), three sacks, seven pass break-ups and two picks.
The hapless professional football franchise in Detroit, throughout another season of losses and mockery, took notice, then took Branch, then injected the versatile defensive back into the worst level of its defense. He made something of a first impression, too, in only the second half of his pro football career. On the road, season opener, down 14–7 to the Kansas City Chiefs, Branch snagged a Patrick Mahomes attempt and raced 50 yards the other way for a touchdown. Mahomes never saw him, Branch says, and “dropped [the pass] right into my hands.”
His play throughout that rookie season contrasted with his NFL experience. Branch became the Lions’ most consistent defensive back and primary turnover specialist, especially early. Coordinator Aaron Glenn moved Branch all over but was forced to deploy him, primarily, at nickel corner, absent other options. In 10 of the 15 regular-season games he played in, Branch didn’t miss one tackle. He made 74 of those, including 50 solo takedowns and seven stops behind the line. He recorded three quarterback hits, one sack and 13 pass deflections, while intercepting three passes and forcing one fumble. All while playing 77% of the Lions defensive snaps and on special teams.
Detroit’s secondary struggled more than any other Lions position group last season. But Branch, the newbie, stabilized the unit. PFF graded his efforts at 78.1 overall, with a 76.0 mark in coverage and an 83.6 mark against the run. PFF rated his slot coverage at 93.6, among the best in the NFL. Hence his fifth-place finish in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting.
Even then, as Branch looks back and eats spaghetti simultaneously, he sees what he didn’t accomplish and what the Lions couldn’t fashion, more than anything either did. Some of their 12 regular-season victories, Branch says, were delivered despite Detroit not playing its best football. They still lost in the NFC championship game, at San Francisco, despite holding a 24–7 lead at halftime. In an individual sense, that first month, the magical one, gave way to steady-but-no-longer-spectacular performances, injuries and what Branch considers a drop-off, however slight, in his play.
This season, Branch says, he plans to carry vibes similar to that first month all the way through. He wants to stay healthy, after missing two games for a right ankle he injured in Week 4, and most of this spring for a clean-up surgery on the same ankle.
“I want more,” he says. “We all do.”
Behind Branch and the rest of a roster that teems with young talent—on lists, like this one, Detroit has six of the best players, league-wide—the Lions continue to foster their new narrative. The one they sold to Branch at the scouting combine in 2023.
They have the best young pass rusher in pro football (Aidan Hutchinson), the best young wideout (Amon-Ra St. Brown), the best young tight end (Sam LaPorta), the best young tackle (Penei Sewell) and two others who made the list (running back Jahmyr Gibbs and interior defensive lineman Alim McNeill). Only 12 teams placed even one player on this list, meaning 62.5 percent of the league doesn’t have one of the 25 best players under 25. Only six teams landed more than one player. Only the Rams joined the Lions with at least three players on there, their total still only half of Detroit’s tally.
Add it all up, and the football franchise in Detroit, hapless no longer, claimed nearly 19% of the pool of the 25 best NFL players under 25. To say that’s “not normal” is to say that biting kneecaps, as Campbell promised the Lions would do in his opening press conference salvo, is not normal.
Detroit also slotted these under-30 talents into starting spots this summer: wideout Jameson Williams (23, hyped all spring), quarterback Jared Goff (still only 29), running back David Montgomery (27) and edge rusher Marcus Davenport (28). Its entire first-team linebacker core—Alex Anzalone (29), Jack Campbell (24), Derrick Barnes (25)—thumps with youth. And its revamped secondary, with Branch back and healthy but to be deployed with more variance, now embodies the youth movement in Detroit. It features a quality starting cornerback in Carlton Davis III (free-agent signing, started 75 games in six seasons with Tampa Bay), a first-round draft pick in cornerback Terrion Arnold (21, starred alongside Branch at Alabama) and safety Kerby Joseph (23, Lions’ third-round pick, ’22 draft).
You know who should also be on the 25-under-25 list? Branch.
Hardly matters. With a new, compelling story to tell, the older narrative of Lions who always lost no longer resonates. He sees the shift everywhere, even when pulling into grocery store parking lots. Strangers will approach, like one did this past spring, to thank him. “That’s the first time I watched a playoff game with my dad,” that man said.
Branch smiled back, as if to say … much more where that came from.
The Lions were still the best story in pro football when the first slate of Sunday games kicked off. They had that ethos, those underdogs, the young stars, the history upended, the promise of the season ahead real. Not to mention the coach who famously suggested adding bone and cartilage to a balanced diet.
Just don’t tether such notions to things such as satisfaction. Branch and his teammates see what happened in Detroit the past three seasons as significant, even remarkable. They also see those same events and moments, the same progress, trajectory pointing more and more skyward, as no more than a start toward the ambition they must realize.
They want more. Branch wants more. And, in at least one sense, he already got that—more responsibility in Detroit’s defense. The Lions plan to utilize Branch at their high safety position more than any other spot this season. In Glenn’s scheme, high safeties do far more than float behind the defense, acting as safeguards to prevent chunk plays. In his scheme, they’re expected to do everything: cover tight ends, clamp down on wide receivers, force turnovers, make tackles against the run, adjust everyone in front of them before snaps, not allow any threats behind him and warm one of Campbell’s 17 cups of coffee consumed on game days. (Only one of these things is not true.)
Branch missed most of Detroit’s on-field portion of the offseason after surgery on his lower left leg. He returned during training camp in mid-August. And, on his second day back in practice, several reports from camp described the kind of display that projected so much more. Branch, per those reports, stuffed a third-and-goal from the 1-yard line, twice forced Goff to abandon pass plays while blitzing, swatted away another throw in coverage and generally showcased an innately creative bearing that can only be fully utilized in his more versatile role.
“A little cleanup,” Campbell called the procedure, his phrasing also applicable to both Branch’s utility in the Lions defense—moveable, versatile—and his new primary position. He’ll do a lot of cleanup, amid a roster he perceives as deeper than last season’s team, which, by the way, won two playoff games and came one second-half collapse away from winning the conference championship.
“Still hungry,” Branch says, having forgotten the spaghetti still piled high onto his plate.
He’s asked about Campbell’s opening press conference, and he laughs, because that sounds like his coach. Branch has just never seen the salvo. As he watches the clip on an iPhone, his eyes dance. But he’s drawn less to the more salacious portions of that presser—biting kneecaps and whatnot—and more drawn to everything else that Campbell’s saying. It’s a blueprint, really, for how the past three seasons have gone and how the fourth might go, all there, the first time Campbell addressed the public as the Lions’ coach.
Branch’s gaze drifts across the street. To Comerica. To downtown Detroit. To what a Super Bowl championship parade might look like as the floats and convertibles wheel past. Lose yourself in the moment, more or less.
“We’re gonna have a way different viewpoint,” Branch says, and he means when the Lions deliver their suffering fan base—not “long-suffering,” because that would indicate there were points they didn’t suffer—the only thing everyone wanted all along.
Maybe the Lombardi Trophy will even stop for a spaghetti sandwich.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brian Branch Driven to Deliver Lions Their First Lombardi Trophy.
