ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn returned from the bye week with a lingering takeaway he just had to share with the class, after a self-scout and time to reflect.
“I think our two safeties are doing a really good job,” Glenn said Thursday.
He’s certainly not alone.
Those safeties, Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, have quietly been bringing the vision their coaches laid out for them this offseason to life. Their skills complement one another perfectly. They’ve both made plays contributing to winning football. And if they keep this up, they could soon be viewed as one of the best safety tandems in the league.
When the Lions drafted Joseph out of Illinois two years ago, what they were getting was an athlete just scratching the surface of what he could be as a safety. Joseph has a volleyball background. He can rise up with the best of them, and it’s allowed him to high-point footballs like few safeties can. He played a little bit of receiver in college, which goes to show you how his ball skills were viewed by the staff at Illinois. He combines it with downhill speed that allows him to deliver high-impact blows, with enough force to jar footballs free from ball carriers.
He always had the toolbox. Lions fans got a glimpse of it two seasons ago when he burst onto the scene as a rookie with a knack for the ball. But Joseph’s best attributes can get him in trouble. Early in his career, there was some boom or bust to his game. There was balance between letting him track the ball and playing within the structure of the defense. A hip injury certainly didn’t help during a much-anticipated sophomore season.
However, the Lions knew it was all there. He has rare traits that make life tough for opposing offenses. It was just a matter of time and development. The Lions believe that Joseph, in Year 3, is there.
“Kerby makes the middle of the field a scary place,” said Lions senior defensive assistant Jim O’Neil, who works directly with the safeties. “From going and attacking the ball, and he also — usually most safeties don’t have both, right? They usually don’t make it scary on quarterbacks — ball is in the air, he’s going to go get it — and then they make it scary on ball carriers where he’s going to knock the hell out of you. He’s one of the few that I’ve been around that possess both those characteristics. I have full trust in him. Two-minute drill, I know if they’ve got to take chunk plays to throw the ball down the field, Kerby is going to come down with one.”
Kerby Joseph seals the @Lions W! #SEAvsDET pic.twitter.com/aGBAemwPvX
— NFL (@NFL) October 1, 2024
“Some guys just got it,” Lions DB Amik Robertson said. “Everybody knows what that it factor is. It could be ball skills, it could be just having a dog in him, you know what I’m saying? Kerby’s got that it factor, man, and when the ball’s in his area, he’s not thinking volleyball. He’s not thinking slap the ball down, he’s thinking go get it. And that’s what you want, man. You want a guy that’s gonna be able to always get after the ball.”
With one safety position locked up, the other was up for grabs. Most assumed it would go to Ifeatu Melifonwu. But the Lions had other plans, dating back to at least March. At the owner’s meetings in Florida, Dan Campbell hinted that Branch, a second-year nickel, could be ready for a move to safety. When the Lions went to identify the right fit next to Joseph, Branch was the guy they kept coming back to.
The Lions didn’t have to make a move like this. Melifonwu was playing the best football of his career down the stretch last year at safety. From Weeks 15-18, Melifonwu ranked third among all defensive plays in splash plays with 15, per TruMedia. For reference, Branch and Aidan Hutchinson were tied for 10th during that stretch with 13 each. Most teams would see production like that — and production from Branch’s stellar rookie season at nickel — and stick to status quo. However, the decision to move Branch to safety was about fielding their best 11, as often as possible.
As a rookie, Branch proved to be an indispensable piece on defense. He has instincts that allow him to react quickly to what the offense is doing. He plays faster and bigger than his measurables, something the NFL often overlooks when it comes to safety evaluations. And while the Lions didn’t believe Branch was ready for safety responsibilities as a rookie, they knew he had everything required to play the position at a high level. He can diagnose, shed blockers, find the ball, hit, cover, whatever you need him to do. He’s really the total package as a player.
“He’s versatile, man,” Robertson said. “BB is the most versatile guy in the league. If we need him to play corner, he can play corner. If we need him to play linebacker, he could play linebacker. Like, he’s a football player. And we all know that. We all know his skill set. BB is BB, man. God just sprinkled something extra on him.”
“He has a lot of plays where if you ask him, ‘What made you do that?’ he just goes out there and does it just because he can kind of feel that play,” CB Terrion Arnold said of Branch, his former Alabama teammate. “His football IQ and then just his calm and collectedness, he’s another guy that I feel like (has a) next-play mentality. If something happens, he’s gonna just go out there and execute the next one.”
The problem, entering a new year, was that the Lions don’t play nickel exclusively. In fact, the Lions had the second-highest 4-3 rate — defensive plays with three linebackers on the field — in the league last year (27.9 percent). They rank first this year at 40.1 percent, per TruMedia.
Lions coaches believed their most effective base defense would need to incorporate both Derrick Barnes (Detroit’s third linebacker in their SAM package) and Branch. Oftentimes last year, it was either-or, depending on the matchup that week or the situation in-game. They wanted to ensure the usage of one of their best defenders wasn’t dictated by the opposition, taking matters into their own hands. They can now play Branch at safety or nickel depending on what’s in front of them. The Lions are allowing 4.9 yards per play when Branch is on the field, which would rank sixth among the 32 teams this year. They’re allowing 6.4 yards per play when he’s not on the field. That would rank dead last. Hence, the move.
“I think the biggest thing coming off last year, coming into it when we were evaluating the season and watching all the cutups, was we’ve gotta get this guy on the field 100 percent of the time,” O’Neil said. “Last year, he was mostly in on nickel, so you could dictate when he was in or out of the game. The big emphasis was getting him ready to go at safety and nickel. I think AG has done an unbelievable job, schematically, showing offenses different looks where we could be in base, but we could be playing nickel calls because of the skill set that Branch has, or we could be at base and he could be aligned at safety, which is very hard on the offense and it just shows what kind of player he is. There’s just not a lot of those guys in the league who can do that kind of stuff.”
“I like it better,” Branch said. “I feel like it gives me a chance to really go make more plays on the ball on the deep side of the field. …I like it back there.”
So far, so good for both Joseph and Branch. Through five weeks, Joseph ranks second in the NFL in interceptions with three in four games played. His PFF grade of 83.8 ranks fifth among 80 qualified safeties. His four passes defended are tied for fifth among safeties. Per PFF, Joseph’s passer rating when targeted is a minuscule 11.0 and a completion percentage when targeted is just 36.4 percent. Branch, meanwhile, leads all safeties in passes defended with seven in just three games played. He’s got a passer rating when targeted of 54.9 (25.0 in man coverage). He’s credited with nine PFF stops — tackles that constitute a “failure” for the offense — which ranks 10th in the league. And his five pass breakups rank first among safeties, per PFF.
How the Lions are using their two safeties might be even more eye-opening than the production. The Lions believe they’re versatile and interchangeable, allowing them to present offenses with different looks. Per PFF, Joseph has played 111 snaps at free safety, 49 snaps from the slot and 102 from the box. Branch, meanwhile, has played 63 snaps at free safety, 49 from the slot and 57 from the box. It makes for a multiple defense, and it just adds to the list of things offensive coordinators need to prepare for when facing the Lions.
“I think it says a lot about those two players that Kerby just doesn’t want to be looked at as a deep safety, and BB just doesn’t want to be looked at as a box safety,” O’Neil said. “I think both of those guys want to be in that 60/40 world, which would be ideal because that makes it harder on offenses. They can’t always look at us and say, ‘OK, that’s the safety that’s dropping down.’ It makes them have to work a little bit harder. But it’s nice when every once in a while you feel good enough about Kerby man-to-man on a tight end and BB can rock back to the post. It’s good, those guys being as interchangeable as they are.”
I think our coaches are doing a really good job of understanding exactly how we want to operate with those guys, the different positions that BB’s playing, the way Kerby has improved, and (Lions DBs Coach) Deshea (Townsend) and Jim O’Neil have done a good job of understanding exactly how I want those guys to play and making sure they coach those guys up that way.”
The Lions’ safety play has been one of the more underrated topics of the season, but they deserve a mention for how they’ve performed and how coaches have put them in positions to succeed. Eventually, the Lions will get Melifonwu (ankle) back from injury, with the potential to deploy three-safety looks and get even more creative with their alignments.
But in the meantime, Glenn can sleep soundly at night, knowing he has a pair of safeties playing at a Pro Bowl level through the first month of the season.
“I feel like we’re super comfortable,” Joseph said. “Me and Brian just been together all the time. I know he played nickel, but he’s always been on the defense so it’s not like I haven’t known him, and I feel like he’s been doing great. He’s been learning how to really be comfortable back there playing safety and a great communicator also.”
(Top photo of Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch: David Dermer / AP Photo)
