At the end of Thursday night’s matchup between the Rams and Vikings, there was a clear missed facemask call on Byron Young’s sack for a safety on Sam Darnold that effectively finished the game.
But both head coach Kevin O’Connell and quarterback Sam Darnold did not make much out of a foul that, if called, would have seen Minnesota keep possession of the ball.
“You know, it looked like he got a pretty good amount of facemask there. Not going to get into the call or no call and all that stuff,” O’Connell said. “It’s just — I told 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. It’s just not going to happen. And I’m going to do the same thing right now.
“I really don’t have a comment on whether it was a [penalty]. It looked like he got a piece of the facemask, but they didn’t think so, so they didn’t throw the flag.”
Darnold noted that the team didn’t put itself in the best position leading up to him getting taken down for a safety.
“The facemask — it is what it is,” Darnold said. “I thought we could’ve done a lot to not put ourselves in the situation that we were in, the penalty before that. So, we’ve just got to continue to play better and not put ourselves in that situation to begin with.”
After that play, the Rams fielded a high safety punt and ran out the clock with three kneels by quarterback Matthew Stafford.
If the foul had been properly enforced when Darnold was brought down, the Vikings would have been at their own 20-yard line, down eight, with 1:36 on the clock.
