The Detroit Lions new secondary had a heck of a go against Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night. There was both good and bad to take away from it. Lions head coach Dan Campbell said on Monday that there was room to grow, but that there was a lot of things he saw that made him proud.
One of the big new things the Lions are trying out is moving Brian Branch from nickel back to safety. For the most part that experiment worked. Branch had five tackles, three pass breakups and a tackle for loss.
However he did miss two tackles pretty badly early in the game and that clearly weighed heavily on his mind. So heavy that he had an immediate message for Dan Campbell when he got to the locker room.
"BB (Brian Branch), you know, made a lot of plays. But then, you know, one of the first things he says, when he's come back in the locker room, he's like, 'I won't miss those tackles anymore', you know. So he knows it. And then he's really one of our best tacklers in general."
There's a guy that knows what he did wrong and plans to fix it. In terms of Campbell saying that Branch is one of the best tacklers, he's right. Branch only missed eight tackles during his rookie season. That's pretty good. Most of the time if you're around him, he's taking you down.
Sunday brings a big challenge with Mike Evans coming into town. Branch is going to have to put those misses behind him and get after it immediately in this one.
