Detroit Lions pivotal play of Week 17: Baffling penalty negates 4th down stop

The Detroit Lions drop their season finale against the Minnesota Vikings, but with another controversial call to pour salt into the wound

That’s all, folks.

The Detroit Lions drop their season finale against the Minnesota Vikings 37-35, ending their season as the bottom team in the NFC North for the third straight season. They finish with a 5-11 record.

The Lions offense looked sharp with several deep throws and a complementary running game helping manage to keep this team within striking distance. Unfortunately, the defense had zero answers for the Vikings’ offense, allowing several chunk plays and showing an embarrassingly level of sloppy tackling.

They would end up on the wrong side of history, allowing a franchise record in yards and points allowed in a single-season.

Vikings QB Kirk Cousins hung up 405 passing yards and three touchdowns, helping Justin Jefferson break the single-season rookie receiving record. Even though the Vikings were missing Dalvin Cook, Alexander Mattison churned out 145 total yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

The Lions’ defense rarely mustered up the strength to get off the field. However, the Lions did make one critical stop on 4th down in the red zone — until something all too familiar reared its ugly head once again.

The Setup

Late in the third quarter, the Vikings were up 31-29 and looking to respond after the Lions scored on their previous drive.

Starting at their own 25, the Vikings were able to dink and dunk with various runs and passes all the way down to Detroit’s six-yard line, setting up 1st-and-goal.

The first play was a Matt Boone four-yard run setting the Vikings up comfortably at the two-yard line. The Vikings feed Boone again on 2nd down, but he could only muster up one yard, after a stop by Christian Jones.

Boone ran it again on 3rd down, and Reggie Ragland and Kevin Strong forced the Vikings into a fourth-down situation.

The Vikings decided to trust their offense and see if they could put the game away.

The Lions got exactly what they were hoping for when Tracy Walker sacked Kirk Cousins, giving the ball to the offense in hopes of taking the lead in this high scoring affair.

But wait…

Walker gets flagged for one of the weakest roughing the passer calls you’ll ever see. After the game, interim coach Darrell Bevell said the referee explained that they believed Walker landed with his full body weight — but that is one major stretch.

Here are some reactions to this hogwash call:

The Vikings would score two plays later, going up 37-29, and looked to have this one wrapped up.

But wait, it gets worse.

On the Lions next drive, Matthew Stafford connected with Marvin Jones on what would’ve been his third touchdown catch of the day, but somehow the catch was overturned and ruled incomplete — even though there was no indisputable evidence.

The Lions did go on to score on the drive, but they ate up precious time to do it.

Now it is hard to say what the refs saw on those two calls, but that sequence of events had the potential of being a momentum shift that favored the Lions.

Even though this game was meaningless in every sense of the word, it was hard to watch the Lions on the wrong side of critical calls once again by the refs. The baffling calls that come with this team make you wonder sometimes.

The Lions will pick somewhere between 5-7 depending on the late games turn out in the draft with the loss. With a new regime walking in, we are not sure how this team will look next season, but strap in folks because when one season, another begins, and it will surely be a busy one for the Lions organization who has a ton of work in front of them.

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