Jarvis Landry responded to Marcus Peters appearing to spit toward him and in the process ratcheted the Browns-Ravens rivalry up a notch.

Landry told reporters Thursday exactly what he thought of Peters after video showed Peters seemingly spitting in Landry’s direction after the Cleveland wide receiver turned his back toward the Baltimore corner at the end of the first quarter Monday night.

“He’s a coward,” Landry said of Peters. “I think he knew that maybe behind my back he’d do things like that, but to my face, he wouldn’t. So I take it for what it’s worth. Now I know. Everybody knows the type of player he is, the type of person he is.”

Landry had no idea about what happened until he watched what happened after the game.

“Wait until I turn around and do something like that? It’s like, do it to my face,” Landry said. “Be a man about it if you’re going to do something like that.”

Peters denied that he spat at Landry in a statement to The Athletic.

“I didn’t spit at Jarvis (Landry),” Peters said. “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.”

Spitting toward players could be seen as a potential violation of the NFL’s COVID-19 protocols. The Ravens had a recent COVID-19 crisis with multiple players contracting the virus and numerous others having to go on the reserve/COVID-19 list as close contacts, resulting in their game at the Steelers being postponed to a Wednesday and their next game against the Cowboys being moved to a Tuesday.

Landry doesn’t seem concerned about any breached COVID-19 protocols.

“If there’s a protocol for being a man, that sure ain’t it right there,” Landry said.

Peters appeared on Ravens teammate Marlon Humphrey’s Instagram Live after the game and called Landry and Odell Beckham “homegirls.” Beckham suffered a season-ending torn ACL in October.

The Browns lost to the Ravens, 47-42, after mounting a comeback in what is considered the 2020 NFL season’s game of the year so far.