Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marcus Peters has been fined $12,500 by the league for unsportsmanlike conduct after appearing to spit at Jarvis Landry as the Cleveland Browns wide receiver walked away in their game Monday night.
On Thursday, Landry called Peters “cowardly” for the act, saying, “Wait until I turn around and do something like that? It’s like, do it to my face. Be a man about it if you’re going to do something like that.”
Later Thursday, Peters issued a statement denying that he intentionally spit at Landry: “Where I come from, when you have an issue with someone, you deal with it face-to-face, man-to-man. Anyone who believes that I intentionally spit at him does not know me — plain and simple.”
On Friday, Ravens coach John Harbaugh said he spoke with Landry after the game, didn’t think Peters directed his spit at Landry.
“No way would Marcus do that,” Harbaugh said. “I know Marcus really well. That’s not really his style anyway. If he was upset, he wouldn’t be doing that. What he did was he spat in a direction. It wasn’t in anybody’s direction, per se. You can tell that on the clip. That’s where I stand with it.”
Browns coach Kevin Stefanski declined to comment on the situation when asked Friday.
The Ravens wound up defeating the Browns 47-42 in one of the top games of this NFL season.