“The easy answer is, ‘Hey, lower your target,'” safeties coach Jim O’Neil said. “But when you’re sprinting and another guy is sprinting and all of a sudden his weight drops and the angle changes, that’s hard. Because you don’t want to suddenly tell guys, ‘Hey, now go through their knees.’ So we’re trying to get his target down to the sternum, but it’s a bang-bang move. I don’t think there was any malicious intent. What happened, happened.

O’Neil added of Branch: “I think he’s a very aggressive player. I think we’re a very aggressive defense. I think he plays exactly how we want our guys to play. I think he was forgiven (by the league) for Arizona Lo, no. I know. You’d have to ask him, but I think they were both situations where the receiver was tracking the ball and at the last second, at full speed, the target changed.

“Their target was the sternum, and then when the ball carrier or receiver goes down, that sternum now becomes higher in the head or neck area. I think that’s part of the game. There were probably four or five hits very similar to It was just last week. I think the defensive players have done a great job over the last few years eliminating those types of hits from the game. I don’t think anyone is going there trying to go helmet to helmet because everyone understands. the consequences.”