By Blessing 
NFL Films Pulls ‘Turning Point’ Episode After Lions Fans Cry Foul Over Brian Branch Focus
NFL Films, in partnership with ESPN, produces the weekly NFL Turning Point series, spotlighting key game narratives. For Week 6, the show zeroed in on Detroit Lions’ Brian Branch, highlighting his defensive struggles and missed tackles against the Kansas City Chiefs. The segment culminated in a brutal hit by JuJu Smith-Schuster, sparking a brawl. Narrator Louis Riddick remarked, “He got showed up by (Patrick) Mahomes. He got juked by Xavier Worthy and took a shot from JuJu Smith-Schuster. The turning point led to Branch’s boiling point.”
Fans slammed the episode as unfairly harsh, prompting NFL Films to remove it. They explained, “That particular sequence felt different to NFL Films as part of a 9-minute breakdown of the Lions-Chiefs game than it did as a standalone excerpt on social media. On X, it felt overly critical to Brian Branch, so it was taken down.”
Riddick apologized on X, saying, “The Detroit Lions organization is one that I have nothing but respect for,” and vowed to avoid similar missteps.