NFL Squashes Captain Morgan's Charitiable (And Brilliant) Marketing Campaign

That was Eagles TE Brent Celek’s celebration after scoring a touchdown last Sunday against the Cowboys. If you don’t recognize that pose, then congrats: You don’t pay attention to obnoxious alcohol commercials targeted at 18-35 year-old primates. But apparently it is the Captain Morgan pose. Which was part of a larger guerrilla marketing campaign by the booze manufacturer to both raise money for charity and earn advertising for their product via NFL player celebrations:

In hopes of raising brand awareness, 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. […]

The campaign was set to be unveiled next week and was fairly simple: For every time a player was caught on camera striking the "Captain Morgan" during a regular season game, $10,000 would be donated to Gridiron Greats. For each instance in the playoffs, the donation would elevate to $25,000. And for instances in the Super Bowl, the bounty was slated to hit $100,000 per pose.

Wait, so this could be fun AND help out ex-players at the same time? The NFL had to put a swift end to this, naturally:

the NFL caught wind of the plan this week, it promptly put the brakes on the promotion, notifying Gridiron Greats and Captain Morgan that it wouldn’t tolerate the pose during NFL games. And while Celek won’t be fined for doing it Sunday, a league source also told Yahoo! Sports that striking the pose in future games will result in a "significant" penalty.