Joe Buck questions Russell Yurk, suggests NFL called penalty directly from league office in Vikings vs. Rams

Joe Buck isn’t afraid to call out the NFL when it’s warranted. And during Monday’s NFC Wild Card Round game between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings, the ESPN Monday Night Football play-by-play man found a moment where he felt it was warranted.

At one point during the game, a penalty was called… even though a flag was never spotted on the field. Buck was curious, suggesting that the call came from the NFL offices in New York City. Buck and on-air rules analyst Russell Yurk shared an interesting exchange on the broadcast.

Buck: “Well, I’ll say this, Russell, we never saw a flag.”

Yurk: “No, and I don’t know where that came from. They definitely talked about it afterwards. And I don’t know where it came from.”

JB: “I mean, am I — am I wrong in saying that they cannot throw a flag, in essence, from New York?”

YK: “Yeah, I don’t think it came from New York. I mean, I did see a flag come in late. And so, I think they talked about it on the field. I don’t think they would have thrown this from New York.”

JB: “None of us up in the booth, our crew up here, saw flag come down.”

Joe Buck confused by penalty call during Rams-Vikings

The broadcast then showed a flashback to the Week 8 Thursday Night Football game between the Rams and Vikings. In that game, it was an apparent face mask on Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold that went unpenalized. There was a similar issue in that game where a penalty was called on a different play while no flag was thrown. Buck made light of that.

“On that hit by Byron Young, it goes down as a safety,” Buck said. “Byron immediately knew he got the facemask of Sam Darnold, but the flag never flew, so the game basically was over. And there’s the one that we didn’t see them throw a flag on, but they did penalize 15 yards against the Vikings, and then a run by Kyren Williams followed.”

The Vikings lost that game back in Week 8. They lost the rematch Monday night, 27-9. A 14-3 season wasn’t enough to give Minnesota a First Round bye and their once promising season ended on a whimper. Minnesota’s inability to win up front was the story of the game, as Darnold was sacked nine times.

The Rams will travel to Philadelphia to play the Eagles in the NFC Divisional Round this Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.