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The Carolina Panthers are ending their practice of bringing baseball bats onto the field, according to head coach Ron Rivera.
While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Rivera said the Panthers will end the practice, following a report that said Panthers players threatened Odell Beckham Jr. with the bat while calling him homophobic slurs before the Week 15 game.
The Panthers have denied ever threatening or using slurs against Beckham, claiming they've been bringing a bat onto the field all season as part of a motivational tactic. Rivera doesn't sound thrilled with ending the practice:
The bat thing will not continue, Rivera says
- Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) December 22, 2015
Rivera on the bat: "I'm going to eliminate it. I want to avoid (the headache). It's the No Fun League for a reason."
- Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) December 22, 2015
Ron Rivera says he wonders whether bat/slurs controversy is "someone's attempt at spin control."
- Joe Person (@josephperson) December 22, 2015
Twitter/NYGDaily
I carried the bat out the tunnel against Atlanta and my teammates held it during warm ups that game to pic.twitter.com/SQTcIy8mrF
- Bené Benwikere (@BigPlayBene) December 21, 2015
Rivera also said that he talked to Marcus Ball, a practice squad player who was carrying the bat, about the incident, but Ball said he never directed any slurs to Beckham. Rivera did say if other actions took place, he wanted to know about them because that behavior wouldn't be tolerated.