NFL Mercifully Ends Stupidest Product Placement Ever

Philly's Brent Celek was fined 15 yards for an idiotic TD celebration Sunday, when he raised his right leg just like the doofuses in those Captain Morgan commercials. And yep, the awful rum maker was behind the whole thing.

After the game, Celek denied having any knowledge of the sweet, delicious rum that makes everyone a Captain™ of their own evening. But then a silly advertising exec blew the whole deal and admitted that Celek was indeed part of the stealth marketing plan organized to spread "brand awareness" of Captain Morgan. Even worse, they tried to wrap it up in a charity drive to guilt everyone into pretending that it wasn't just a terrible fake viral campaign for booze.

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.

Oh, what an amazing corporate citizen! But the grouchy grouches at NFL put the kibosh on that right away. Players can't do advertisements, charity or otherwise, during games. Please leave the shilling to every single other person associated with the broadcasting of an NFL game.

"I don't want people to think our intention was to [upset] the NFL," [ad dude] Lehrman said. "We want to find a way to do it, but it's not going to work out as currently formulated. … It's at the point where we need to re-think how we can go about doing this and find a way that we can raise money for [Gridiron Greats] without getting people upset."

They could just write a check, but then how would anyone find out about the awesome sexy female-slaying powers that simply holding a glass of Captain Morgan bestows upon even the schlubbiest alcoholic? I'm not sure the four mind-numbing commercials an hour during every televised sporting event will keep them covered.

P.S. Please be a Captain responsibly.

League shipwrecks Captain Morgan campaign [Yahoo] Brent Celek's "Captain" Pose Was Part of "Guerrilla-Style Advertising Campaign" [700 Level]