Mike Freeman's 10-Point Stance: Baseball Bats at an NFL Game? No, No, No!

1. Motivational props can work—and can also be dangerous

The year was 2003, and one of the great motivational-prop fails of all time took place in the Jacksonville locker room.

Then-coach Jack Del Rio, mired in an 0-3 start, decided to take a hunk of wood—a small tree stump—and put it in the locker room. The message: Keep chopping. To emphasize his not-so-subtle point, he placed an ax near the stump.

Boom...boom...chop...chop. Players took their turns chopping wood. Then came punter Chris Hanson's turn. The ax slipped off the wood and went into his non-kicking foot. Blood was everywhere. It was like a scene from a horror movie.

Prop fail. Unbelievable, magnificent prop fail. 

The 2009 Saints used baseball bats as props, and that served to motivate them well.

Then-Raiders interim coach Tony Sparano, after his team got off to an 0-4 start in 2014, buried a football to signal the end of the losing.

Bill Parcells, as coach of the Jets, once left an empty gas tank in the locker of Brian Cox with a note that read: "Do you have any left in the tank?"

Coaches have left mousetraps in lockers to signify, you know, trap games.

Do the props work? Hell yes. Yes they do.

Former All-Pro offensive lineman Tony Boselli told the Los Angeles Times' Sam Farmer that "even if it moves the needle 1 percent, it's worth it."

Which brings us to baseball bats and the Carolina Panthers.

They are proof of how the motivational prop can be both great and problematic.

The idea that the Panthers use a bat as a motivational prop is cool. It's not original, but it's cool. It speaks to the almost blue-collar mentality of the team and why Carolina is so successful and is going to make history.

But like Jacksonville and the ax, the bat trick may have gone too far. Bringing baseball bats onto the field before an NFL game is just a bad idea. Now, what you'll see in response to this are various non sequiturs and false choices. The comments section of this article will be littered with them.

The reason you don't bring a bat onto the field is things do get heated, as we saw in the Giants game. Did Odell Beckham really feel threatened by the bats? I doubt it. But things get heated and people do dumb things...like nearly chop their foot off with an ax.

No, this isn't the biggest deal of all time. It's just not smart.

There have been many pregame scuffles in NFL history. Some of them got nasty. Imagine if, during those scuffles, someone had a bat.

Again, not a big deal in this current case, but also not smart.

I mean, this right here is not a good look:

"

What is a Panthers practice squad player doing going into the Giants team stretching area.. with a baseball bat? pic.twitter.com/4mIQ0jwYRg

— Giants Daily (@NYGDaily) December 22, 2015"

When I tweeted that bringing bats to a practice or locker room was okay, but not a game, longtime veteran kicker Jay Feely tweeted back at me: "They shouldn't be at practice either. I've seen dudes absolutely lose it at practice."

I think Panthers coach Ron Rivera knows the bats-in-pregame thing wasn't a good idea. That's why he announced Tuesday that the team was stopping the practice.

So, motivational props? Cool. Mousetraps and gas cans? No problem.

Baseball bats before actual games? Naw, man.

2. Odell is great, but...

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

This comment from ESPN analyst Ryan Clark, who played at LSU just like Odell Beckham, says a great deal about the second-year Giants wideout.

On Mike & Mike, Clark said he likes Beckham as a person. However, he added: "He was the first LSU player I was willing to let my teammates jump."

Why?

"Because he's a brat."

To be clear, Clark wasn't implying he was teammates with Beckham. He was saying that he'd let his NFL teammates jump Beckham, even though the two share an alma mater.

Quietly, that has been the reputation of Beckham among opposing defenses for some time. I've heard this in bits and pieces, and I think Clark summed it up smartly and succinctly. Teams believe they can get inside the head of Beckham. That he can be easily rattled. That he's prone to allowing players to get into his head.

So far, Beckham has been so tremendous that many of those private criticisms have rung hollow. Beckham has destroyed the league.

Beckham has given teams the blueprint on how to try to affect him. It's only worked a handful of times so far. But the attempts will keep coming.

3. One last thing on Beckham

The video (starting at 1:50 of this "highlight" reel) clearly shows that Beckham's cheap shot on Josh Norman hit Norman right in the head. The side of his head, to be exact. It's a brutal hit.

So the question is: Why weren't both players put into the concussion protocol?

The concussion observer is supposed to view video replays. There were numerous video replays. Why didn't the observer pull one or both players after a violent head-to-head collision?

4. Bad things happen to good people

Cardinals safety Tyrann Mathieu tore his ACL against the Eagles on Sunday night. Few players that I have ever covered came back from the brink with such class and grace as Mathieu. And he'll come back from this as well.

5. Incredible

Don Wright/Associated Press

Broncos safety David Bruton Jr. played almost an entire game with a fractured leg Sunday. Not going to add to that incredible piece of toughness. Just going to let it sit there and marinate.

6. GM on Russell Wilson: 'We all f----d up'

Russell Wilson was a third-round pick. Recently, he has put together a stretch of games that is almost unmatched in the history of the sport. He's been to two Super Bowls and is a bad play call away from being 2-0 in them.

So does going in the third round count as a miss for the league?

"We all f----d up when it came to Russell," said one general manager. "Where we were all wrong was that there were very few scouts who believed he could be this great a pocket passer. We screwed that up."

7. Is Antonio Brown the Stephen Curry of the NFL?

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

That's the argument made by Brian Billick on Move the Sticks. It's a smart one.

I've said Brown is this generation's Jerry Rice, but outside of football, he is a lot like Curry. And I'd suggest another comparison: Cristiano Ronaldo.

I think Brown's explosiveness is more comparable to soccer than basketball. Curry's talents are more about shooting. Brown's and Ronaldo's are more about speed and power, and the inability of an opponent to match that speed and power.

I'd like to see Ronaldo line up once at wide receiver and Brown try a few minutes playing world-class soccer. Hey, a man can dream.

8. Congressional concussion study

This will get very interesting. Not sure who will be on the committee, but Congress has never shied away from pushing to make changes in the sports world. This is the type of thing that could shake up football.

9. Jameis Winston's historic rookie season

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Jameis Winston, rather quietly, is putting together one of the great rookie seasons of all time. He's thrown 20 touchdown passes. That ties him with the rookie campaigns of Dan Marino, Andy Dalton and Robert Griffith III. It puts him one behind Cam Newton and Derek Carr. Two behind Buffalo's Jim Kelly and the Giants' Charlie Conerly, who had 22 in 1986 and 1948, respectively.

He is only three behind Andrew Luck. The rookie record is 26, set by Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson. Winston has two games left. He has a shot at setting the record.

10. Charles Woodson to retire

Woodson announced Monday he will retire after 18 seasons. I've said it before: Not only is Woodson one of the best defensive backs of all time, but he also has to be considered one of the top five football players of all time. He will also make one hell of an analyst, as he is, easily, one of the brightest people I've ever met.

See you in the Hall of Fame.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.