Brian Branch

Detroit LionsUNDERPAID

Pos S

Updated August 24, 2026

S rankings →

Model Score

99.0 MODEL

2023

74.3

2024

85.8

2025

99.0

How good he is at what he is supposed to be doing, out of 100. Not a projection of what he will do next, and not a read on his contract. Median is about 70, and a 95 is rare. How it is built →

Season Stats · 12 games

066th

INT

910th

Pass Deflections

52.5%4th

Comp % Allowed

7.222nd

Yds / Target

231st

TD Allowed

4639th

Solo Tackles

Draft & College

Round 2, pick 45 · Detroit Lions · 2023

Alabama (SEC)

Taken

#45

where he actually went

Consensus board

41st

average of the public big boards that spring

Our college model

#41

among S in our college data

He went about where consensus had him.

In college · 2020-2022 · 36 games

4 INT, 24 pass breakups, 157 tackles, 16 TFL

Covers the college seasons in our data, which does not always reach back to a player's first year.

Comps

Overall match

size, testing and production, same career stage

Camryn Bynum70%Xavier McKinney70%Jaylon Johnson69%

Plays like

on-field production only

Devin McCourty92%Kevin Byard90%Amani Hooker85%

Built like

measurables only

Jeff Shoate89%Ryan Steed88%Leonard Myers87%

STM Take

2024 1st-team All-Pro plus 2024 Pro Bowl plus 2025 tier 1 (#1) STTM peak establishes Branch as the best safety in football. The Alabama 2020 CFP National Championship pedigree plus the 45th overall draft slot establishes elite foundation. The 2026 question is whether Branch wins his first DPOY or whether the multi-year tier 1 dominance translates to back-to-back top-prize voting.

Branch came out of Alabama as the Detroit Lions' 2nd-round pick (45th overall) in 2023 after winning the 2020 CFP National Championship as a Crimson Tide freshman. He earned 2024 Pro Bowl plus 2024 1st-team All-Pro recognition. His STTM career runs tier 4 (#27) rookie, tier 1 (#7) in 2024, and tier 1 (#1) peak in 2025.

Strengths

2024 1st-team All-Pro plus 2024 Pro Bowl plus 2025 tier 1 (#1) STTM peak establishes the best safety in football.
Alabama 2020 CFP National Championship pedigree plus three years of NFL elite production gives him the rare championship-pedigree elite career foundation.

Concerns

Detroit's broader defensive identity around the Hutchinson primary pass-rush priority puts continued Branch production partly dependent on team-fit.
Multi-year peak workload plus the elite-pace expectations put the late-2020s structural decline question on every projection.

What to watch: Whether Branch wins his first DPOY in 2026 plus holds tier 1 (top 5), the threshold for confirming the multi-year dominance translates to top-prize voting.