Refs miss blatant facemask penalty, Rams earn controversial win vs. Vikings on Sam Darnold safety

Byron Young grabbed Sam Darnold‘s facemask and brought him to the ground in his own end zone, and it resulted in a safety.

It was a game-changing no-call that pushed the Los Angeles Rams’ lead to two scores in the final minutes of the 30-20 win over the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night. Young reacted immediately to his foul, but no flag was called on the play.

Apparently this is not a facemask pic.twitter.com/NcptylOLvg

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When Darnold made it back to his feet, he signaled to the ref by grabbing his own facemask. At the same time, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell was in the ear of another offical likely attempting to find an explanation for the no-call in such a pivotal moment in the game.

The call is not reviewable, however, and after a failed onside kick the Rams would go on kneel down the final minute and change to improve to 3-4 on the season.

After beginning the season 5-0, it’s the second loss for the Vikings in four days after they lost 31-29 to the Detroit Lions on Sunday thanks to a last-second field goal.

“I don’t want to make any kind of excuses about the short week, about penalties or anything like that,” O’Connell told reporters postgame. “We’ll get back to work. We’re a 5-2 football team with a lot of football in front of us.”

Despite the quick turnaround for Minnesota, it was a hot start for both teams coming out of the gates on Thursday. Each team scored touchdowns on their first two possessions, but the Vikings were the ones to break the tie early in the second half to take a 17-14 lead. LA would take control from there, however, scoring touchdowns on consecutive possessions.

The Vikings defense was able to give the ball back to the offense with just under two minutes to play. Two plays later, and the safety was called. It goes down as a sack for Young on the stat-sheet, and turned out to be the game-winning play.

Darnold and the Vikings won’t be in action again until Nov. 3, when the host the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday Night Football.