Detroit safety Brian Branch struck Kansas City wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster with an open-handed blow to the face, setting off a scrum after the end of the host Chiefs’ 30-17 victory on Sunday night.
The game had concluded when Branch ignored Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes attempt to high-five him as the Lions player walked past near midfield. Smith-Schuster was nearby and went up to him, but apparently after a few words, Branch hit him in his facemask, causing him to tumble to the ground.
Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco tried to separate the pair after Smith-Schuster got up and ran after Branch, only for the Chiefs receiver to get his helmet taken off and Branch to get him on the turf again as players from both sides converged on the fight.
Branch later apologized for the skirmish and explained his reasoning for being upset with Smith-Schuster.
“I did a real childish thing,” Branch, 23, told reporters. “I’m tired of people doing stuff in between plays and refs don’t catch it. They be trying to bully me out there. I shouldn’t have did it, it was childish.”
He cited a specific play late in the fourth quarter when Smith-Schuster hit him in the back away from the play.
“I got blocked in the back illegally,” Branch said, “and it was in front of the ref and the ref didn’t do anything. It’s just stuff like that. I could’ve gotten hurt off of that, but I still shouldn’t have done (the postgame fight), though.”
Smith-Schuster called Branch a great player who is important to the Lions. He was expecting a handshake and a “good game,” he said.
“But he threw a punch,” said Smith-Schuster, 28, who thought Branch was frustrated during the game by “me just blocking him.”
“I’m just doing my job,” Smith-Schuster continued. “I play between the whistles.”
Mahomes touched on that theme earlier when he was interviewed after the game on the NBC broadcast.
“I mean, we play the game in between the whistles,” Mahomes said. “They can do all the extracurricular stuff they want to do, but we play in between the whistles.”
Kansas City coach Andy Reid said Branch hit Smith-Schuster “for what looked like no reason,” and noted his receiver got his nose bloodied. “That’s tough and he did pretty good damage on JuJu’s nose.”
Detroit coach Dan Campbell said Branch was in the wrong.
“I love Brian Branch, but what he did is inexcusable and it’s not going to be accepted here,” Campbell said. “It’s not what we do, it’s not what we’re about. I apologized to coach Reid and the Chiefs and Smith-Schuster. That’s not OK. That’s not what we do here, and it’s not gonna be OK. He knows it, our team knows it. That’s not what we do.”
Branch, a second-round draft selection in 2023 and a Pro Bowl pick in 2024, has been fined by the league a total of $34,784 this season for an unsportsmanlike conduct infraction in Week 1 against the Green Bay Packers and two unnecessary roughness violations: taunting the Packers and for a low block in Week 3 against the Baltimore Ravens, NFL.com reported.
Smith-Schuster, a second-round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2017, has played for the Steelers (2017-21), Kansas City Chiefs (2022, 2024-present), and New England Patriots (2023). He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2018.