Umpire Larry Smith sidelined for the rest of the season

Umpire Larry Smith will miss the rest of the 2026 season after suffering a noncontact leg injury in London.

Smith went down early in the Texans-Jaguars game at Wembley Stadium between downs, seemingly slipping on wet turf when a game ball was relayed to him slightly over his head. After getting back on his feet, as soon as he put weight on his right leg, Smith lurched back and crumpled to the turf. Veteran line judge Carl Johnson removed his cap and knelt down beside Smith as trainers tended to him.

Multiple officiating sources have said that it is a torn quadricep muscle and that Smith will be out for the rest of the season. The officiating department, through a league spokesman, declined to comment.

Smith is in his second NFL season. He worked seven seasons as a referee and one at center judge in the Big Ten Conference, and previously worked in the Mid-American Conference. He was on 5 spring league rosters from 2019 to 2024 and was the referee for the 2023 USFL Championship, prior to that league’s merger into the UFL.

Bizarrely, Smith was the unwitting person in two viral videos in consecutive weeks. Last week in Los Angeles, his shoe came off while backpedaling to his pre-snap position. Referee Shawn Hochuli, usually the loquacious one on the microphone, just said “timeout,” pointing to himself and then addressing the defense to try to keep the cameras off Smith. However, it didn’t escape being clipped on social media.

This week, it’s unfortunate there is no humor in the moment.

Hochuli will have a substitute umpire for the remainder of the season. The officiating department has a few options. Tab Slaughter is a veteran swing official at the umpire position, Ian Malepeai is one of the new bench swing officials (but the only one of those that is an umpire), and there are crews that have bye weeks that can supply an umpire.