{"id":887272,"date":"2026-10-19T03:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T03:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/887272\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T03:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T03:08:15","slug":"referee-shawn-smith-umpire-tra-blake-witnessed-c-j-gardner-johnson-spitting-on-an-opponent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/887272\/","title":{"rendered":"Referee Shawn Smith: Umpire Tra Blake witnessed C.J. Gardner-Johnson spitting on an opponent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bills safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was ejected late in the first half of Sunday\u2019s game against the Raiders. It appeared that Gardner-Johnson was ejected for spitting.<\/p>\n<p>After the game, referee Shawn Smith explained the decision to pool reporter Case Keefer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had two players jawing back and forth and then our <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/samwarren83\/status\/2111980078515232801?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">umpire witnessed him spitting on the opponent<\/a>,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>The umpire on Smith\u2019s crew is Tra Blake.<\/p>\n<p> The video seems to show Gardner-Johnson <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NFLonCBS\/status\/2111936654365675872?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">spitting in the direction<\/a> of Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, with the spit either striking Raiders center Tyler Linderbaum\u2019s hand or Bowers\u2019s leg.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, Blake was right there to see it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe saw him spit on the opponent,\u201d Smith said, regarding Blake\u2019s account of the situation. \u201cSo, we don\u2019t go into the judgment of where he is spitting and this, that, or the other. He spit on an opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The situation looked a lot like the incident between Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter from Week 1 of the 2025 season. After Prescott spit on the ground before the first play from scrimmage, Carter spit on Prescott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bills safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was ejected late in the first half of Sunday\u2019s game against the Raiders. It&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-887272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}