Brian Branch should be in the conversation for defensive rookie of the year as it stands right now. He has put up incredible tape so far, and his versatility in the Detroit secondary makes him that much more valuable to Dan Campbell's defense. He's been great in coverage so far, but his run defense has been practically flawless. 

This was a big strength of his coming out of college, and was one of the reasons I loved him as a hybrid DB prospect. He is sure to make mistakes as his rookie year goes on, however the early return on Branch has made him well worth the 2nd-round draft pick that the Detroit Lions used on him.

Detroit Lions CB Brian Branch Film Breakdown

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Disclaimer: The following is a transcript of a YouTube video titled “CB Brian Branch makes the Lions Defense SO MUCH Better: Film Breakdown” The content is for informational purposes only and was originally presented in video format.

There have been so many good rookie defenders through the first four weeks with a lot more players getting off to a fast start than normal, and Brian Branch should be at or near the top of the defensive rookie of the year race. He's played mostly in the slot, but I think he's one of the rare DBs that could play all three positions. 

But having him in the slot where he's closer to the ball allows him to impact run defense a lot more. Through four weeks, he has a 15. 9 percent run stop rate. No defensive back in PFF's database has been above 10% for a season. As he plays more snaps, that number's gonna come down a little, but we've never seen someone be this productive defending the run.

And he's been equally good in coverage, three pass breakups and a pick six. He's played 38 man coverage snaps and allowed two receptions for 13 yards. And these are high difficulty point of attack press coverage reps, where if he allows a step or two of separation, he's gonna get targeted, and he just hasn't given up anything. Right here, we got Drake London running a slant route. Good job respecting the outside release but not getting his hips fully turned around to the sideline so when he cuts back inside he can still recover.

He makes contact with his inside hand to kind of leverage himself across London's body and get into the window and break up the pass. Right here he's covering London on a speedout, he pushes off at the break but Branch doesn't allow any separation and he's right there to make the tackle. Here's another quick out. This time he's covering Christian Watson but he's playing with inside leverage so this is a much more difficult play. 

Once Watson gets to the top of his route and lands that plant step with the inside foot, he immediately recognizes it and breaks on the pass. The Lions rank 11th in the NFL in passing EPA per play after ranking 30th last year. And there's multiple factors going into that. Aidan Hutchinson and Alim McNeill have taken significant steps forward. Cameron Sutton has been a true upgrade on the outside.

But I think the biggest reason for their improvement has been Brian Branch taking away whoever's lined up in the slot. He also has great route recognition and coverage instincts. On this play, the Falcons are running a play action bootleg to the right side of the field. The lines are in cover three, so Branch is responsible for this curl flat zone, And once he sees Ridder rolling out of the pocket, he immediately knows there's gonna be an intermediate out route that he has to defend.

Pretty much every keeper concept is gonna have a deep clear out, An intermediate route to the sideline, and then something in the flat. So when Ridder breaks out of the pocket, instead of trying to backpedal, he just immediately breaks to the sideline and recovers that space. And then once he gets in phase with Kyle Pitts he gets his head turned and breaks up the pass.

On this play, I'm not exactly sure what concept the Seattle Seahawks are running here. It looks like Jaxon Smith-Njigba runs the wrong route. But it's 3rd and 2, the Lions are in man coverage, and Brian Branch has JSN. The routes break, he looks to the quarterback, sees that Tyler Lockett's coming open to the sideline and he breaks off his assignment, closes the space, and makes the tackle short of the sticks. 

He also got this pick 6 in his first game, which is maybe the 20th most impressive play on his tape. The Chiefs are running a mesh concept, Kadarius Toney is open on this drag route, but he drops it, and it falls right into Brian Branch's hands. So from an evaluation standpoint, it's a good play, not necessarily that impressive.

But it's great for his rookie of the year chances, which are pretty much just based on the box score. What makes him a top tier run defender is his play recognition, pursuit, and tackling consistency. He had 140 tackles at Alabama and only 4 misses, which is as efficient as you'll ever see. And it was even more impressive because so many of those were full speed tackles in open space.

It's not like he's breaking down 5 yards early and just making sure he doesn't miss. He's laying huge hits in the backfield, but you don't get the negative plays and inconsistency you usually see with those types of players. I watched all 200 of his snaps, and I only saw 4 negative plays from Brian Branch. Two of those were penalties, he had a horse collar tackle in week 3, and then he also got an unnecessary roughness on this hit on Bijan Robinson.

With an aggressive DB like Brian Branch, it's really hard to avoid this type of play. And I have a difficult time being critical of this, sitting on my couch going through these plays frame by frame. But I'm including it just to show you everything that's happened. and then he did give up two touchdowns both of them came in the red zone. This first one against Seattle, they're running JSN across the middle on a slant route and then Tyler Lockett's breaking to the pylon. 

Branch works over the top of this pick. He does a good job giving his corner space to work through and cover JSN. But he needs to be a little more aggressive here, establishing outside leverage. Tyler Lockett stumbles and then breaks outside on like a pivot route. And Branch doesn't have the angle to keep up with him. And then his second touchdown came against the Chiefs in more of a zone coverage look.

Cameron Sutton's responsible for the running back out in the flat. And then they've got the tight end running a sit route in between these two defenders. I'm not sure if Branch thought someone else was supposed to cover this, but he needs to squeeze this hitch route and let the corner cover the flap.

So, in retrospect, it's insane that this dude fell to the 45th pick in the draft. From the moment he stepped on the field, he's upgraded every aspect of the line's defense. And I think there's a lot of teams watching the Brian Branch tape over the past few weeks that are kicking themselves for overthinking this one.

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