The Detroit Lions suffered their second loss of the 2025 season on Sunday night, falling to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
Early in the second quarter, Lions linebacker Jack Campbell went for an aggressive punch out on Chiefs wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown - a play that apparently captured the NFL‘s attention.
On Friday, Detroit defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard revealed that the league sent out a memo to the team hoping to correct this behavior.
“Lions DC Kelvin Sheppard said the NFL sent out a memo/tape to make sure players are punching at the ball, not the player when they’re looking for forced fumbles on defense. He indicated the tape was due to Jack Campbell’s play,” team insider Dave Birkett reported.
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This wasn’t the only action the NFL took following Sunday’s Lions-Chiefs matchup. The league also issued and upheld a one-game suspension for Detroit safety Brian Branch, who swung at Kansas City wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and started a brawl after the “Sunday Night Football” matchup.
Sheppard gave some advice to Branch during his media availability on Friday.
“I believe it's my job to be a mentor in that department to him because I have been in his shoes,” Sheppard said, via Birkett. “At one point I was a kind of toeing-the-line kind of player that played with that type of edge, but I told him, ‘Man, you just have to understand. You have 60 minutes to be able to do whatever you want to do to another man and kind of leave it right there.'”
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The Lions will look to get their 2025 season back on track in a highly-anticipated “Monday Night Football” matchup against Baker Mayfield and the 5-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 7.
Monday’s game will kickoff at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
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