How did the officials miss a blatant facemask on Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold?

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — If the Vikings had played up to their standard on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium, they wouldn’t have been in a situation where a missed penalty played such an important role in the outcome of the game. Nonetheless, the Vikings were certainly on the wrong side of a blown call as quarterback Sam Darnold got dragged down by his facemask in the final minutes with no flag thrown.

The result of the play was a sack in the end zone that went for a safety. That was the final nail in the coffin as the Vikings went on to suffer a 30-20 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. A pool reporter talked to referee Tra Blake afterward in an attempt to get an explanation for why he and the rest of his crew decided not to throw the flag.



“The quarterback was facing the opposite direction from me, so I did not have a good look at it,” Blake said. “I did not see the facemask being pulled.” Any replay look at the play shows that edge rusher Byron Young indeed grab Darnold’s facemask while he brought him down for a sack with 1 minute, 46 seconds left on the clock.

“On the field we definitely did discuss it because they did bring up a concern,” Blake said. “We weren’t able to see it on the field, so we weren’t able to make the call.” The play itself is not reviewable according to NFL rules, so there was nothing Blake could do about once the moment passed.

Asked about the missed call that went against the Vikings, head coach Kevin O’Connell tried to take the high road as best he could. “I really don’t have a comment on it,” O’Connell said. “It looked like he got a piece of a facemask.

They didn’t think so. They didn’t throw the flag.” In that same breath, O’Connell emphasized that the Vikings weren’t going to use the missed call as an excuse as to why they lost, especially after struggling on both sides of the ball for prolonged stretches throughout the game.

“That is not how we’re going to respond to this,” O’Connell said. “It’s not going to happen.” Frankly, the Vikings would’ve been in a tough spot even if they got the 15-yard penalty needing to go the length of the field in a very short amount of time.

“It is what it is,” Darnold said. “I thought we could have done a lot to not put ourselves in the situation that we were in.”.