It appears that the Minnesota Vikings have officially reached the "we are sick and tired of hitting each other and would really, really rather hit somebody else" stage of this year's Training Camp.
Today's tussle involved wide receiver Percy Harvin and rookie safety Harrison Smith. 1500 ESPN provides the play-by-play.
Harvin caught a pass on a short route from Christian Ponder on the second play of a third-down drill and turned upfield, where he collided with Smith, the first-round draft pick from Notre Dame.
Players were in shells, not pads, but the collision was loud enough to draw a rise from the crowd. Harvin continued trying to run downfield. Smith didn't let up. Harvin recoiled and appeared to consider throwing the ball at Smith before going facemask to facemask with him instead.
It's good to see the rookie getting his nose dirty and not backing down from what appears to be a very aggressive style of play. Lord knows we need something like that out of the safety spot after what we saw last year, and it looks like Smith is going to provide it.
We're now less than 48 hours away from the first pre-season game of the year for the Vikings. The team will have a closed walkthrough tomorrow morning before they board their plane for the west coast and their game with the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park on Friday night.