The Minnesota Vikings may not have had the game stolen from them Thursday night but their chance to tie was certainly taken away.
Trailing the Los Angeles Rams 28-20 with just over 90 seconds left in the fourth quarter on "Thursday Night Football," the Vikings were pinned back at their own 5-yard line as they tried to march down the field for a game-tying touchdown and two-point conversion.
That's when quarterback Sam Darnold was ripped down by his face mask by Byron Young in the end zone. However, instead of a penalty giving the Vikings the ball at the 20-yard line with 90 seconds left, the referees never threw a flag and ruled it a safety, making it 30-20 and all but ending the game.
The Vikings did a lot of things to hurt themselves on Thursday night — the team was called for nine penalties, many of them extremely costly, and had other miscues — but the team was still in position to give themselves a chance to win.
Instead, the referees missed a blatant call, which still isn't reviewable for some reason in the NFL, and the Vikings lost their second game in a row.
Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell said after the game that he thought it should've been called but didn't blame the officials for the loss.
“For us to talk about that, for us to seek comfort in that is not how we’re gonna respond to this, it’s just not gonna happen,” he said.
Minnesota has a lot of things to fix to be successful the rest of this season but clearly the NFL has issues to address, too.
