It wasn’t a great night for NFL officiating.
In Thursday’s game between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings, a controversial no-call squashed any chance at a potential Vikings’ comeback.
Down 28-20 with under two minutes left in the fourth quarter, Vikings QB Sam Darnold was brought down in the end zone for a game-sealing safety by Rams linebacker Byron Young.
But upon further review, replays showed that Young grabbed hold of Darnold’s facemask while bringing him down and should’ve been flagged for a 15-yard penalty on the play, negating the safety and keeping the Vikings’ comeback hopes alive.
It appeared even Young thought a penalty was going to be called, as he was pictured holding his helmet after tossing Darnold to the turf.
Because no flag was thrown on the play, and the fact that the NFL currently does not allow reviews on missed penalty calls, the safety counted and the Rams walked away with a 30-20 victory.
Head referee Tra Blake addressed the play after the game.
“Well, on that play, the quarterback was facing the opposite direction from me so I did not have a good look at it,” Blake said in the game’s pool report. “I did not have a good look, and I did not see the facemask being pulled, obviously.”
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell appeared to see the play just fine.
“It looked like he got a pretty good amount of facemask there,” O’Connell said after the game. “I’m not going to get into call or no call and all that stuff. I told our team officiating and all that stuff, for us to talk about that, for us to seek comfort in that is not how we’re going to respond this.”
O’Connell is taking the high road, but many on social media were not.
Here are some of the best reactions to the game-altering no-call.
