handed a one-game suspension<\/a>, which\u2014if Branch\u2019s appeal fails\u2014will force him to miss Monday\u2019s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.<\/p>\nOn Tuesday, Campbell defended Branch\u2019s character, chalking the fight up to a learning experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an outstanding young man, he really is. He\u2019s got a big heart, and he made a mistake. He\u2019ll learn from it,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n
Campbell said he\u2019s talked to Branch since the game, talking face-to-face with the Lions\u2019 safety before the suspension was announced (Branch is currently not allowed in the facility). He believes Branch understands the gravity of his actions and that it\u2019s unacceptable moving forward.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time Branch has gotten into hot water due to his emotions getting the better of him. After being ejected against the Packers in 2023 for an illegal hit, Branch flipped off the Green Bay crowd, resulting in another penalty and a fine. Earlier this season against the Packers (again), he tossed the helmet of Packers tight end Tucker Kraft, resulting in a personal foul penalty.<\/p>\n
Despite the repeated offenses, Campbell remains confident that Branch will course-correct.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe understands all that. He knows he can\u2019t react that way, and he\u2019ll be better for this. He\u2019ll learn from it,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Campbell is moving forward under the assumption they won\u2019t have Branch. And with Kerby Joseph battling a knee injury, it could leave the Lions\u2019 secondary even more shorthanded than they\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody else has got to pull a little bit more of that load,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cBetween the corners and the linebackers and the D-line and offense and special teams. And so, we\u2019ve just got to help each other out. I mean (Thomas Harper) Harp went in the other day, he didn\u2019t play a ton, but it\u2019s what we have seen in practice. I mean, there\u2019s some stuff in there, there\u2019s a few things in there that are pretty encouraging. We don\u2019t have a problem with him being in there. We\u2019ll play with what we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell held a press conference on Tuesday, the first since his postgame media session…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":303444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[27705,27706,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-303443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-detroit-lions-news","9":"tag-detroit-lions-quotes","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115374242331626586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}