When we look back on the 2023 NFL draft a year from now, there’s a good chance we will be talking about Brian Branch as one of the draft’s biggest steals.
The Detroit Lions took Branch with their fourth pick of the draft, No. 45 overall in the second round, and have wasted little time working him as the starting slot cornerback in their nickel defense.
Branch does something eye-catching nearly every day. He’s always around the ball. He plays with a physicality most cornerbacks lack. And on Monday, he made the play of practice, intercepting a Jared Goff pass and returning it for a touchdown.
When he came off the field after practice, I joked with Branch that it looks like the NFL has come easy to him, and he insisted that wasn’t the case.
“No sir, it hasn’t,” the ultra-polite Branch said. “Believe it or not, I have a lot to work on. Just the little things. Like the game last Friday, it’s just the eye discipline and stuff I have to work on. But nah, it’s not as simple. Every day’s a grind.”
Branch made three tackles, including one for a loss, in 16 defensive snaps in the Lions’ preseason-opening win against the New York Giants. He had the game’s biggest hit early in the first quarter, when he blasted Cole Beasley on a pitch pass to the flat, but Branch said the mistakes he made overshadowed the good he did.
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“Just when I’m covering, I got a habit of looking back at the quarterback too quickly, I would say,” he said. “And just initially, receivers are much better than in college so I just have to plaster my man a little bit longer.”
Branch is understandably nit-picky about his game, and the Lions will need him to excel in coverage this fall if they’re going to reach the heights they aspire to as a defense.
But his eagerness to make plays is a welcome addition to the secondary, and his interception at Monday’s practice — the last before the Lions host the Jacksonville Jaguars for two joint practices Wednesday and Thursday — was the latest example of the rewards they might reap.
Branch was coming off right end on a blitz when he noticed Goff check to a new play. Branch made a beeline for Goff at the snap, but veered to his right after a few steps and stuck his right hand in the passing lane to deflect Goff’s throw to a Lions running back.
Branch caught his own tip and sprinted towards the end zone, through a line of teammates lining the field behind the play.
“He knew I was blitzing and I seen him check to like a little flare out to the running back,” Branch said. “He got me on that before so it just took — watched film, and knew that he was going to throw that.”
As for his camp as a whole, Branch said he thinks he’s been just “OK” so far, which struck me as the understatement of the summer.
“I know what I’m capable of and I’m nowhere near where I want to be at,” he said. “I just try to be perfect and I hate when I get a ball caught on me or just mess up on a play. That gets me a lot, so just try to be perfect.”
Who’s the new guy?
Teddy Bridgewater took just one set of reps with the second-team offense Monday as he spent the day getting acclimated with his new team. Bridgewater hit Jameson Williams for a nice gain down the middle of the field on his first practice of team drills and threw incomplete on his next two passes with one drop.
Nate Sudfeld continued to handle most of the second-team reps — he got six periods of work with the backup offense — while Adrian Martinez got three red zone plays late in practice with the third-team.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said Bridgewater has spent the past few days “grinding on the playbook” and the plan is to get him a little more work against the Jaguars this week.
“I’m just going to gauge where he’s at, where he feels, what it looks like and then we’ll make a determination at the end of the week,” Campbell said. “But our plan is to get him going in practice this week.”
Seeing red
The Lions worked heavy on red zone Monday, with the first-team offense scoring on two of three plays in a goal line period. Malcolm Rodriguez made a nice stop on a David Montgomery dive on the first play of the period, with a defensive tackle — I believe it was Cory Durden — grabbing Montgomery’s leg from behind to impede his progress.
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Goff threw a touchdown pass on a trick play that caught linebacker Derrick Barnes off guard, and Jahmyr Gibbs beat Barnes, Alex Anzalone and John Cominsky to the end zone on a toss on the third play of the series.
Sudfeld led the second-team offense to two scores in three plays as well. He threw a jump ball touchdown to Sam LaPorta, who worked heavily with the twos Monday after his drop against the Giants, and Devine Ozigbo scored on a short run.
Jermar Jefferson and Mohamed Ibrahim sat out practice Monday and Craig Reynolds only took part in individual drills, so Ozigbo and Benny Snell got plenty of run and both are firmly in the mix for roster spots given the Lions’ injury situation at running back.
Return man Maurice Alexander joined Jefferson and Denzel Mims (ankle) in the rehab group working on the side with trainers during practice.
Just for kicks
Special teams play, obviously, will factor heavily into who wins the third running back and other backup jobs, so it was interesting to note the personnel on the Lions’ punt cover units Monday. Snell worked as a wing protector on the second-team punt cover unit, and fullback Jason Cabinda played in the same spot with the ones.
Jalen Reeves-Maybin played personal protector with the top punt unit, the spot that Justin Jackson held before he retired unexpectedly last week. Branch was the personal protector with the twos, while Tracy Walker, who had filled that role on the second-team punt unit joined Cabinda as a wing protector with the ones.
Defend the den
Defensive linemen Levi Onwuzurike and Josh Paschal played well in Friday’s preseason game against the Giants and are in line for rotational snaps this fall. Onwuzurike had tackle-for-loss on a tight end screen to Brock Wright early in team drills Monday, when he showed good recognition to sniff out the play. And Paschal beat Germain Ifedi to stuff Ozigbo for a loss on a run play during Bridgewater’s one series on the field and had a pressure on a Goff incompletion to Kalif Raymond later in practice.
Elsewhere on defense, C.J. Gardner-Johnson is so quick diagnosing plays it’s easy to see why the Lions pivoted to him once he became available in free agency. He came from the far side of the defensive formation to break up a Goff pass to Josh Reynolds in team drills Monday. Between him, Branch and Kerby Joseph, the Lions have some playmakers in their back end.
And Derrick Barnes continued his solid camp. He fought through a Taylor Decker block to force Montgomery outside a run play in the second red zone period of practice and hit a hole early to spill Montgomery into Branch on another run play at the start of practice.
We score as a team
In one of the lighter moments of practice Monday, Cabinda followed a nice Frank Ragnow block through the middle of the line on a fullback drive in one short-yardage period, and when the Lions defense let him wiggle into the secondary, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson came sprinting onto the field to run with Cabinda to the end zone.
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Cabinda, who had one carry for 4 yards last season and has five rushes in his NFL career, had stopped 15 or so yards past the line of scrimmage, after Gardner-Johnson tagged him lightly down.
Notebook
A couple more personnel notes to end today’s observations: Will Harris took first-team reps at cornerback with Cam Sutton out sick; Chase Cota joined Dylan Drummond and Williams as the second-team receivers after his big preseason game; and Ifedi played most left tackle — and Nelson right — after the two were on opposite sides early in camp. The Lions probably only have room for one of Nelson or Ifedi, and even if they keep both, only one will be active on game days.
Brad Cecil (center), Colby Sorsdal (left guard) and Kayode Awosika (right guard) filled out the rest of the second-team line for most of the day, with Graham Glasgow working ahead of Halapoulivaati Vaitai at right guard with the first-team.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.