ALLEN PARK, Mich.— After a strong showing in his rookie year, the Detroit Lions made Brian Branch a full-time safety to pair alongside budding star Kerby Joseph.

Fast forward just one year, and the two have a strong case as the best safety tandem in the NFL. Joseph just received the most lucrative safety contract in NFL history, while Branch is sure to command a similar deal starting next offseason.

For as good as the two have been, their youth suggests there’s an even higher level of play that’s attainable.

“They definitely had a great year, but we’re expecting even more from them this year,” Lions safeties coach Jim O’Neil said.

Branch, 23, and Joseph both received honors during the 2024 season, with Branch making his first Pro Bowl and Joseph, 24, earning First Team All-Pro after leading the league with nine interceptions.

Offseason growth isn’t just rooted in getting bigger, faster and stronger. It begins with a self-scout, aided by O’Neil, who creates a series of cut-ups for each player so they can study their games and approach their goals for the summer with nuance and deliberation.

“It’s always good to kind of go back (and) watch the whole year,” O’Neil said. “They’ve both been outstanding. I made tapes for each guy that pulled the critical things that they need to see, but also all the different techniques so they can go back and study themselves. It’s been pretty cool.

“Like, ‘Hey, BB, watch all your blitzes. I’ll watch them, and then let’s talk about it the next morning.’ I think when they watch it instead of you just telling them, I think you get more out of it. If they’re seeing the same thing that you’re seeing, instead of you just saying, ‘Hey, this is what I saw, you need to bet better at this (and) this,’ they come back to you and say, ‘Hey, coach, I saw I was doing this.’ (Then I say), ‘I agree. Let’s work on it this way.'”

The Lions deploy Branch as a do-it-all weapon who defenses have to account for on every play, whether he be coming off the edge as a blitzer, crashing down on a run to make one of his 109 tackles, or lurking in the secondary to come down with an interception, of which he had four in his second season.

Branch and Joseph combined for 13 of Detroit’s 16 interceptions, tied for sixth in the league.

One area Branch does need to clean up, though, is his tendency to hit players high. While head coach Dan Campbell has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to take away the player’s “stinger,” Branch was fined seven times for a total of $70,896, including several for either hitting a defenseless receiver or impermissible use of the helmet.

O’Neil said the team bought a custom tackling dummy to help Branch aim lower, but defended the intentions of his Pro-Bowl safety.

“We’re going to live on that post-practice and save some of his money,” O’Neil said, adding, “He’s not trying to hurt guys out there. A lot of times … those are bang-bang plays. If I’m a DB, I have my aiming point of where I’m about to strike a guy, and then if a guy catches and his aiming point drops, it ends up helmet to helmet or shoulder to helmet or shoulder to neck.

“That stuff is a lot easier to coach in slow motion than it is full-speed. The answer is you just go lower, but now you’re hurting guys. We’ll work it.”

Conversely, one of the things that impressed O’Neil about Joseph was his growth as an open-field tackler. Joseph, who finished sixth in Defensive Player of the Year voting, had a career-high 83 tackles, just one more than he achieved in each of his last two seasons.

“One of the things that I’m most proud of with him is I thought he did an unbelievable job in open-field tackling last year. It was even more impressive than I thought when I went back and watched the cut-ups,” O’Neil said.

“You’re really known for two things as a post safety: Obviously, a guy who can go get the ball, and a guy that can erase mistakes when the ball pops, and I thought he did an outstanding job of that.”

Last season, Joseph’s third in the league, also saw him take on the role of a locker room (and position room) leader. He hired a private chef and hosted the rest of the defensive backs for dinner on Thursday nights and has taken seriously the example he sets for younger players.

“Just his leadership in the meeting room, like, ‘Hey, make sure you write that down,’” O’Neil said.

“Or (he will) reemphasize a coaching point that he might know for a player that’s hard on the grass, or, ‘I didn’t get that the fist time around,’ so looking at a younger guy, ‘Hey, did you get that? Coach, can you go over that again?’ Or he might ask questions that he knows the answers to that other guys might need to hear the answer again or in a different way.”

Joseph and Branch earned some of the highest honors a player can achieve last season, but with so much room to grow, one can’t help but wonder what another year of growth looks like for those two players — especially when you put them side by side.

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