Harrison Smith likely to avoid suspension for shoving NFL official

Vikings safety Harrison Smith will be fined but not suspended by the NFL. Smith shoved an official in the Vikings' 30-7 victory over the Titans on Sunday.

Harrison Smith says ejection stemmed from stupidity

Harrison Smith says that his ejection from Sunday's contest with the Tennessee Titans for making contact with an official resulted from his stupidity, and he takes complete responsibility for his actions, according to Judd Zulgad of ESPN 1500.

A referee led Smith away from a scuffle with a Tennessee Titans player early in the second quarter, but when the referee moved him backwards, Smith shoved the official to the side. He was given a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty and ejected from the remainder of the game. After the game, Smith stated that he was indeed in the wrong.

"I just got kind of caught up in the heat of the moment and at the end of the day you can never touch the officials. They have a hard enough job as it is and to make it harder on them is just stupid and is something I don't ever want to do from this point on."

Smith may be subject to further punishment from the NFL. While Smith hopes he can play in next week's game with the Washington Redskins, he stated that he will accept whatever punishment is handed down from the league.

I'm going to take whatever they give me...I just want to play next week and just help the Vikings win."

The Minnesota Vikings drafted Smith out of the University of Notre Dame in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He has played in all five games thus far.

Titans At Vikings Update: Harrison Smith ejected for contact with official

A bad development has just come up for the Minnesota Vikings in their game against the Tennessee Titans.

With about 11:30 remaining in the second quarter of play, Vikings' cornerback Antoine Winfield intercepted a Matt Hasselbeck pass and returned it deep into Tennessee territory. After the play, Vikings' rookie safety Harrison Smith was charged with a personal foul and ejected from the remainder of this afternoon's game.

It was thought at first that Smith had thrown a punch at a Tennessee player, but the replay showed that he pushed an official off of him that was attempting to back him away from a Tennessee player. That's an immediate ejection in the National Football League, and the rookie from Notre Dame was given the proverbial thumb.

With the Vikings already short-handed at safety with Andrew Sendejo and Mistral Raymond nursing ankle injuries, it might come down to Smith's Notre Dame teammate Robert Blanton, the Vikings' fifth-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, to line up next to Jamarca Sanford for the majority of the remainder of today's game. Blanton hasn't seen much time of defense this season, so it will be interesting to see how the secondary plays for the rest of the afternoon.

Blair Walsh has just added a 42-yard field goal to make the score 10-0 in favor of the Vikings with 10:27 left in the second quarter of play.

Here's an animation of what happened to Smith to get him ejected. The folks at CBS didn't show a whole lot of what happened, unfortunately.