Giants punter Brad Wing saw the interaction between teammate Odell Beckham Jr. and bat-wielding Panthers safety Marcus Ball before the two teams faced each other Sunday.
According to Wing, he heard Ball tell Beckham, "I'll be the reason this will be your last game."
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"I mean, he had a baseball bat," Wing added in comments to reporters Wednesday, per The New York Post. "He never swung it at Odell or anything like that but it was there, it was present."
After that interaction, Wing says Ball went to Panthers corner Josh Norman and "had a little conversation." He says he doesn't know what the two talked about but said Beckham was "shaken up" and "surprised" after Ball's "legitimate" threats. Giants tight end Jerome Cunningham was also near the interaction and echoed Wing's retelling.
When asked about Wing's comments, Ball took the comedic route and said, "If I had $1 for all the ex-girlfriends that have false accusations about me."
Wing also commented on the alleged homophobic slurs that were used by the Panthers. On that topic, Wing said, "There may have been, there may not have been, I don’t want to say there was because I don’t remember 100 percent." While he couldn't remember if the Panthers made any specific remarks, he did say Beckham has been subjected to homophobic taunts all season.
"I know that’s something he’s definitely had to deal with, just by him communicating that with me," he said.
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In an interview with the New York Daily News, former Cowboys wideout Michael Irvin echoed Wing.
"He deals with it a lot," Irvin said. "For some reason, everybody goes after him with gay slurs. He’s a different kind of dude. He has the hairdo out, he’s not the big muscular kind of dude. The ladies all love him. He's a star. I wonder why people are going in that direction. It blows my mind. I told him he can’t let stuff that people say get to you."
Giants coach Tom Coughlin said earlier in the day, "To depict this as Odell Beckham being wrong and the only one being wrong, that is not right."
