The Minnesota Vikings have fallen back to earth after their 5-0 start to the season, losing back-to-back games to the Lions and Rams. That loss to the Rams finished under some dubious circumstances on Thursday night, as Los Angeles, leading 28-20, sacked Sam Darnold in the end zone for a game-winning safety, as they were able to put knees on it to end the game after the free kick.
However, it was very apparent that Byron Young grabbed Darnold by the facemask on the sack, meaning instead of the game being over, the Vikings should’ve moved the ball out to the 20 yard line and had a little bit of life.
Been a bad week for Minnesota and referees, Darnold gets sacked for a safety and the referee misses the obvious facemask pic.twitter.com/Vq4Q1scO81
— CJ Fogler
(@cjzero) October 25, 2024
In case there was any doubt, Young didn’t even celebrate his sack and grabbed his helmet in frustration because he figured the ref would’ve seen an obvious facemask on the quarterback — who they protect to an insane degree usually. Instead, he got away with an egregious facemask and the Rams were able to not even sweat out a game-tying drive from Darnold and the Vikings.
Now, the likelihood the Vikings came back to win the game was extremely low, as they would’ve needed an 80-yard touchdown drive with 90 seconds on the clock and no timeouts. However, that’s still a chance, and the Minnesota sideline and their fans are understandably furious with the lack of a call. It was bad enough that the NFL didn’t even post the video of the game-winning safety to their social accounts, which is usually a pretty good indicator that there was a big time mistake made by the officials.