Elliott enjoys shenanigans at the kettle

Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott made a

$21 donation into a Salvation Army kettle after his 16-yard first-quarter touchdown against the Washington Redskins on Thursday.

He then tossed quarterback Dak Prescott into the kettle after another touchdown later in the game to earn the pair a 15-yard penalty.

Two years ago, Elliott jumped into the kettle after a Thanksgiving touchdown run against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That jump earned him an unsportsmanlike conduct flag, although the NFL spared him a fine. Elliott, in turn, pledged $21,000 and encouraged fans to make $21 donations to match his uniform number.

This time, Elliott — handed the cash in the end zone by a Cowboys staff member — was not flagged, with the NFL having since relaxed rules on touchdown celebrations.

“I was just thinking about what I could do today that would be a little bit different,” Elliott said after the game. “Two years ago when I jumped in there, there were a bunch of $21 donations to the Salvation Army. Hopefully that first $21 that I put in there today triggers a lot of donations for them.”

Elliott made another donation, picking up Prescott and dropping him into the kettle after the quarterback’s fourth-quarter touchdown run. This time, the play drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“I think he just deserved to get in there,” Elliott said. “I just had to throw him over there. He got in himself.”

“We need to stay away from the kettle, so we’ll work on that,” Coach Jason Garrett said. “You want them to love playing football. What you don’t want is them getting a 15-yard penalty out of that. We’ll learn from that experience and move forward. That might be a rule the NFL can look at as well.”

Bautista the beetle

Jose Bautista has a new namesake buzzing around.

Entomologist Bob Anderson of the Canadian Museum of Nature has dubbed a newly discovered species of beetle “Sicoderus bautistai” after the former Toronto Blue Jays star.

Anderson decided to name the insect — known as a weevil for its long snout — after Bautista because of the slugger’s bat-flip after a home run against Texas that propelled Toronto to the 2015 American League Championship Series.

The 38-year-old Bautista played for Toronto from 2009-17.

The Sicoderus bautistai is a tiny black weevil that is found in Bautista’s native Dominican Republic.

Anderson has named about 120 weevils in his career.

“One of the nice things about this is that you have some latitude to do something kind of quirky,” Anderson said. “[Naming] sort of builds on a history and the names tell little stories.”

Emergency situation

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute freshman offensive lineman Reuben Clarke is being credited for intervening when two train cars detached from the rest of a locomotive Wednesday night.

Clarke noticed the cars had detached shortly after the Amtrak train left Rensselaer, N.Y., and pulled the emergency brake.

“The car from the back of the train was like leaving us, and I saw sparks and stuff like that and a huge gust of wind,” Clarke told WRGB-TV in Albany, N.Y., “so I just calmed myself down, and I was like, we have to stop the train and make sure everyone was fine.”

No one was injured in the incident, according to Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams.