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Nickel safety Brian Branch was the versatile weapon of Nick Saban’s defense at Alabama
Any team looking for a premier nickel defender or versatile safety should begin their draft board in the 2023 NFL Draft with Alabama safety Brian Branch. Branch is the rare Alabama prospect who has been a major contributor as a true freshman for the Crimson Tide. Branch is a former highly rated four-star recruit who compiled 172 tackles and 4 interceptions over the course of his career in Nick Saban’s defense. He was named a first-team All-American in 2022 after dominating primarily from the nickel.
Branch is an extremely clean prospect with the ability to align from the nickel and deep safety. A team should be extremely pleased with him wherever they choose to play him at the next level.
Brian Branch operates at an elite level with the most difficult tasks
Branch aligned in the nickel position a large majority of the time in Alabama’s defense; head coach Nick Saban never made his life simple. Whether he is rotating back to a natural safety position or asked to match man-to-man from an off alignment, Branch was ready for the task. Nobody on Alabama’s defense did more. The football IQ for Branch is off the charts and he is extremely scheme-versatile for a team that wants to play in a man or zone scheme. Saban asks him to play off to maximize the disguise of coverages and avoid pick plays. Branch answers the bell constantly. He’s an outlier for how sticky he can be playing in off coverage alignments.
One underlying strength of Branch’s is just that — his play strength. Branch is an extremely effective tackler and isn’t afraid to stick his nose in to any run fit. He has legitimate stopping power playing through the bodies of receivers. There’s so much to love about that piece of his game. He’s a bigger nickel to begin with, but he never needs to come off the field for and team that drafts him.
Brian Branch will have some questions about long speed coming into the NFL
One of the only true questions for Branch will be his athleticism and how it stacks up in the NFL. He ran a 4.58 40-yard dash at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine. Branch is not tasked often with running vertically with a team’s fastest target, but there was a moment against Texas that showed a possible speed deficiency. I don’t think it will matter enough in the NFL if he is utilized in a similar fashion as he was in college, but it’s something worth noting for future consideration when he is forced to face vertical slot players.
Branch likes playing top-down, but he could afford to react better when receivers gear their route down in front of him. At times, this does pop up for him and he is a bit slow to break down and get downhill to affect a pass. It’s not a consistent issue, but it does pop. Branch is so clean that we have to nitpick some at his game.
How Brian Branch measures up
We already mentioned a small concern of Branch’s was his long speed. It was a bit of an up-and-down combine for Branch
40-yard dash: 4.58 seconds
Broad Jump: 10’5
Vertical Jump: 34.5”
20-yard Shuttle (Pro Day): 4.45 seconds
What Others are Saying
Diante Lee of The Athletic had this to say about Branch’s game in a recent write-up:
Branch is a disciplined defender in every phase of the game. He can diagnose offensive tendencies by formations and motions, take on and slip past blocks, cover a wide range of routes from the slot and finish with good form on his tackles. He has ball skills, too, so making him a full-time deep safety would open up more opportunities to affect the game when the ball is in the air.
A personnel executive for an AFC team had this to say to NFL.com regarding Branch:
Smart and competitive and way stronger than you expect. He could come in and become a top player quickly.
The New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars are two teams that would make a lot of sense for Branch in this draft as far as team fits. Both teams are in need of a nickel defender with the versatility value of playing safety, if needed. Any team could use a Brian Branch due to his fabulous IQ and ability to apply himself at multiple spots in the secondary.
Every team in the NFL should consider Branch as an option anywhere from the late stages of the top 10 to the middle of the first round. Branch makes any defense better immediately with his schooled ability as a technician and simply playing smart football. If a safe prospect ever existed as a nickel/safety, Branch embodies it in every way with his ability to get sticky and apply supplemental run game assistance. Branch had a Santa Claus to-do list as the do-everything in Alabama’s secondary, and he passed the test with flying colors.
