Myles Simmons ,
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Lions safety Brian Branch has garnered a reputation through his first few years in the league, accumulating more than $100,000 in fines over his first three years in the league. He even had $23,186 docked from his paycheck earlier this year.
He’s likely going to see another reduction in pay — if not a suspension — for his actions at the end of the Lions’ loss to the Chiefs on Sunday night.
After Patrick Mahomes took his final kneel down to finish the game, the NBC broadcast showed Branch crossing the line of scrimmage and first refusing to shake Mahomes’ hand. Then Branch and receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster appeared to have a short exchange before Branch struck Smith-Schuster in the face with an open hand.
That prompted running back Isiah Pacheco to come up and grab Branch, moving him away from Smith-Schuster. But that’s when a fracas was on, as both teams came up to separate the players. Branch appeared to land at least another punch before things settled down.
“We play the game in between the whistles,” Mahomes told NBC’s Melissa Stark in his postgame interview. “They can do all the extra-curricular stuff they want to do. But we thought we played a great game today, and we’ll keep this momentum moving forward.”
Branch came into Sunday’s game questionable with an ankle injury and finished the contest with seven total tackles.
We’ll see how the NFL decides to impose discipline for the incident.
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