NFL fans could not believe the horrendous, game-changing roughing call from Lions-Vikings

Just embarrassing.

In recent years, the NFL has gone to extreme measures to protect quarterbacks from taking hard hits because, well, the league doesn’t want its most marketable players missing time. That’s led to some awfully questionable roughing-the-passer calls.

But you’d be hard pressed to find a worse roughing call than what we were treated to during Sunday’s Week 17 game between the Vikings and Lions.

With the Vikings going for it on fourth and goal and a two-point lead in the fourth quarter, the Lions’ Tracy Walker III got to Cousins untouched on a blitz. He sacked Kirk Cousins with a textbook tackle, but there was no hesitation on the flag for roughing the passer.

Just a dreadful call.

At most, the officials ruled that Walker carried through the tackle with his body weight on Cousins, but come on. There’s no way that hit warranted a roughing penalty. The Vikings would score a touchdown thanks to the penalty.

The NFL basically lucked out that this was a meaningless game because otherwise the outrage would have been wild. NFL fans were still in disbelief.

What was Walker supposed to do there? That call changed the game.

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