Refs say they couldn’t see face-mask penalty late in Vikings-Rams game - The Athletic

The Minnesota Vikings lost their comeback chance against the Los Angeles Rams on “Thursday Night Football” after officials missed a face-mask infraction by Rams linebacker Byron Young late in the fourth quarter.

With 1:46 remaining in the game, Young pulled Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold’s face mask and threw him to the ground in the end zone, resulting in a sack and safety and sealing the Rams’ 30-20 win.

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During the postgame pool report, referee Tra Blake said officials did not see the infraction.

“On that play, the quarterback was facing the opposite direction from me so I did not have a good look at it,” Blake said. “I did not have a look, and I did not see the face mask being pulled, obviously. The umpire had players between him and the quarterback, so he did not get a look at it. He was blocked out as well.

“So that was the thing. We did not see it, so we couldn’t call it. We couldn’t see it.”

Blake explained that the officiating crew discussed the call after missing it.

“On the field, we definitely did discuss it because they did bring up a concern,” Blake said. “We discussed it as a crew, but we weren’t able to see it on the field so we weren’t able to make the call. … (The play) is not reviewable.”

The Vikings lost their second straight game and fell to 5-2 as the Rams improved to 3-4.

Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said he didn’t want to reflect on the missed call.

“It looked like he got a pretty good amount of face mask there,” O’Connell said. “I’m not going to get into the call, or no-call, or all that stuff. I talked to 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 to this.”

(Photo: Harry How / Getty Images)

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Hunter Patterson is a live news editor at The Athletic. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University and USC, Hunter recently worked as a broadcasting assistant for the NBA.