{"id":8746,"date":"2015-12-23T09:05:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T17:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/league-reminds-teams-no-foreign-objects-on-field\/"},"modified":"2015-12-23T09:05:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T17:05:28","slug":"league-reminds-teams-no-foreign-objects-on-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/league-reminds-teams-no-foreign-objects-on-field\/","title":{"rendered":"League reminds teams no foreign objects on field"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C.<\/strong> \u2014 At the end of the day a frustrated Ron Rivera didn\u2019t have a choice whether Carolina players could continue to bring baseball bats on the field before games.<\/p>\n

The NFL made sure Tuesday that Rivera and other coaches were clear on the rules.<\/p>\n

League spokesman Greg Aiello said in an email to The Associated Press that the NFL sent a memo to all 32 teams reminding them that \u201cno foreign objects unrelated to the uniform or playing equipment are permitted on the playing field and sidelines on game day (which includes the pre-game period, during the game, and postgame on the field).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers baseball bat, which they say is a motivational prop, has garnered much attention in the fallout after the Panthers-New York Giants game on Sunday due mainly to incidents involving wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and Panthers cornerback Josh Norman.<\/p>\n

Rivera said earlier Tuesday that the Panthers had not done anything wrong and was asked if that was the case, why he made the decision. The coach said, \u201cbecause I\u2019m going to hear it if I don\u2019t. That\u2019s the truth of the matter,<\/p>\n

\u201cSo to avoid the situation and set of circumstances, let\u2019s just eliminate it. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do. Again, it\u2019s the No Fun League for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivera didn\u2019t say if he had received a league memo, which also stated, \u201cWhile we realize that teams and individual players may have items they use for motivation or to symbolize a theme that the team has used this season, we ask that you instruct your club personnel and players to leave those items in the locker room. For the purposes of this policy, \u2018foreign objects\u2019 broadly encompasses any item that is neither intrinsic to the game nor necessary to conduct pregame drills and treat and prepare players for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing the Panthers fifth-year coach did make clear was being upset about what he said were untrue reports that some players taunted Beckham with physical threats and homophobic slurs before Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Rivera said the Panthers wouldn\u2019t stand for that kind of behavior and the team found no evidence it occurred.<\/p>\n

Neither the Giants nor Beckham have released any statements accusing the Panthers of taunting the wide receiver before the game with physical harm or homophobic slurs. Rivera said homophobic slurs are an important social issue and he doesn\u2019t take them lightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is something out there that is factual, that there is truth or hard evidence, please present it to us as well so we can act accordingly,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cWe don\u2019t tolerate that here. We don\u2019t. If there is some truth to it we will react to it and handle it appropriately. Until there is, there\u2019s nothing for me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of the Panthers questioned about the incident addressed the issue in the open locker room session, which came before Rivera\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n

The coach said the baseball bat represents the team having a home run mentality when it comes to making big plays.<\/p>\n

Rivera spoke to practice squad player Marcus Ball, who was seen carrying the bat before the game, but the defensive back denied any of the accusations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen some of the clips but honestly they are benign,\u201d Rivera said.<\/p>\n

The Panthers are 14-0 on the season and five wins away from completing an unbeaten season. They can wrap up the No. 1 seed in the NFC this Sunday with a win or tie against the Atlanta Falcons.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com\/AP_NFL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 At the end of the day a frustrated Ron Rivera didn\u2019t have a choice whether Carolina players could continue to bring baseball bats on the field before games. The NFL made sure Tuesday that Rivera and other coaches were clear on the rules. League spokesman Greg Aiello said in an email to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8746"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}