The NFL, as you can guess, was not pleased by Celek's plug for the company.
The “Captain Morgan” was effectively banned this week after the league learned of a wider campaign meant to get players to repeatedly strike the pose during NFL games.
“A company can’t pay a player to somehow promote it’s product on the field,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told Yahoo! Sports this week. “Every league has the same rule. … It’s come up before, companies trying to use our games and then players for ambush marketing purposes.”
Celek spoke through an Eagles spokesman and denied any knowledge of a Captain Morgan campaign. But an account executive handling the promotion told Yahoo! Sports the Eagles tight end was indeed involved.
Now, before you go nuts, know that Captain Morgan intended to offer lucrative charity contributions in exchange for each instance a player was caught on camera doing its pose during a game. The contributions were earmarked for the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund – a non-profit which helps retired NFL players with various hardships after leaving the game.
It's also hilarious that the NFL comes down so hard on people trying to promote liquor when NFL stadiums are awash in beer ads, and the league let Leonard Little play again after he killed a woman while driving drunk. In other words, the NFL only wants booze advertised when it makes them a lot of money.
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