Pressers and scrums: Kerby Joseph's lofty goal and Branch wishes he played more safety as a rookie

Allen Park — It feels like NFL players have been increasingly cautious about revealing individual goals. Maybe it’s as simple as they desire keeping focus on the team, or they want to avoid the social media ridicule if they end up falling well short of personal expectations.

But if there’s a player who isn’t going to shy away from sharing bold goals, it’s probably going to be a defensive back. On Saturday, Detroit Lions safety Kerby Joseph let the world know he’s gunning to lead the league in interceptions in 2024.

It’s certainly within the realm of possibility. Joseph has tallied four interceptions each of his first two seasons, establishing himself as one of the league’s better, young turnover-generators.

Over the past decade, the league-leader has averaged 7.9 picks. The fewest required to lead the NFL during the stretch was six in 2019 and 2022. The Lions have had two players lead the category in recent years. Darius Slay paced the league with eight during an All-Pro season in 2017, while safety Glover Quin’s seven in 2014 put him on atop the leaderboard.

Additionally, Joseph doesn’t want to limit his takeaways to interceptions. He noted he’s also focused on punching the ball out more, something he did better as a rookie than in 2023, when he failed to jar a ball loose from an opposing ball carrier.

● Brian Branch still isn’t cleared for full football activity, but he’s getting close after being activated off the physically unable to perform list the first day of training camp.

Branch said he’s ahead of schedule with his rehab from offseason surgery and he’s looking forward to his pending transition to safety this season.

“I just feel like AG (defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn) makes his defense so safeties can make plays,” Branch said. “You're farther back from the line of scrimmage, so that means you can move anywhere and make a lot more plays on the ball compared to nickel. I'm looking forward to it, I just have to go get it.”

Glenn made the decision to lock Branch into the nickel spot last year to sharpen the rookie’s focus with a single role, but the young defender regrets not getting more opportunities to play safety in 2023.

“Honestly, I wish they did put more reps at safety on me last year, just because I feel like I would be a lot further along than I am now,” Branch said.

● Dan Campbell didn’t meet with the media Saturday. His session was replaced by one with special teams coordinator Dave Fipp, who actually had some unbelievably nice things to say about yours truly as part of his opening statement.

Beyond those humbling comments, Fipp shared his growing excitement to see the NFL’s new kickoff format in action during next week’s Hall of Fame game.

“Yeah, number one I would say I’m excited about it,” Fipp said. “Number two, I would say I think it’s like a lot of things, the more you learn about something, the more questions you have. There’s still a lot of unanswered questions. You know, I can’t wait to watch this Hall of Fame game and see these guys actually play the play out. It’s a little bit different than the other league (XFL) that was using it, whatever, two years ago. So, it’ll be interesting to see. We’re going to get a chance to practice against the Giants and I was just on the phone with their (special teams) coach the other day, so hopefully we’ll get a chance to kind of see some different schemes and throw some different things at each other and learn a little bit more about it.”