We all have moments in life we'd like to take back. But most people don't have those moments happen in a significant public forum. After Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch was ejected for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Green Bay Packers wide receiver Bo Melton last Sunday, he certainly had a moment he was not proud of.
Branch was apparently not further penalized on the field for giving a well-captured double-middle finger to the Lambeau Field crowd as he walked off the field after being ejected. So the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty he got, on top of the unnecessary roughness penalty for the helmet-to-helmet hit, seems to have been for something not-so-nice he said to the officials after the decision to eject him came from the league office in New York.
After Wednesday's walkthrough practice, Branch stood at his locker and took responsibility for his bad moment three days prior.
Brian Branch takes ownership of what happened vs. Packers
"That's not something I wanted to show or want people to notice me as that," Branch said, via Eric Woodyard of ESPN.com. "That was just the heat of the moment for me, and I apologize to everyone who seen that and that won't happen again."
During his appearance on 97.1 The Ticket Tuesday morning, head coach Dan Campbell said he had already discussed the extra curricular incident with Branch.
"That’s what he and I talked about, like, ‘Man, you can’t give them the 15 after that,'" Campbell said.
In terms of the helmet-to-helmet hit, the fourth of his career already, Branch said he agrees with the call as well as the idea professed by his coaches that he has to change his target area on similar plays going forward.
"I most definitely agree with the call. My target was obviously high, but that was never my intentions to aim for the head," Branch said. "Moving forward I do have to move my target down."
Campbell and the coaching staff, as well as at least one teammate, doesn't want Branch to lose his aggressive playing style. But the entirety of what happened against the Packers was a learning moment for the second-year man, and to his credit he did not shy away from talking about it. Come Saturday, when fines are doled out for Week 9, that lesson will come with a big financial hit too.