The Vikings, Sam Darnold, and NFL officiating are clearly not on the same page when it comes to controversial calls. If it wasn’t bad enough last Thursday night when the officials missed a facemask call on Byron Young that resulted in a game-ending safety — he was later fined by the league. There was yet another bad call on Sunday night against the Colts.
Darnold was strip-sacked and Indianapolis returned it for a touchdown — yet it shouldn’t have counted. Grover Stewart grabbed Darnold high and made contact with his face and slammed him to the ground which made the official throw a flag. But he quickly picked it up and said it was a legal play.
As you can imagine, Kevin O’Connell was not happy. He had a meeting with three refs on the sideline to figure out why the flag was picked up. But there was nothing that could be done by then.
Darnold now has two turnovers for the Vikings. He threw a terrible interception when Minnesota was driving inside the Colts’ red zone and then the fumble later on.