Kevin O’Connell says that the Minnesota Vikings won’t dwell on the facemask on Sam Darnold that wasn’t. It would be easy to, though. Byron Young grabbed Darnold’s facemask while he was in the end zone and yanked his head sideways, and they’ve got 10 days to think about it.
Instead of taking a safety that sealed their 30-20 to the Los Angeles Rams, the Vikings would have had first-and-10 from their 20-yard line with 1:36 left to go. Minnesota didn’t have any timeouts, and they had only scored six points since the beginning of the second quarter. Still, the facemask penalty would have kept them alive.
“It looked like we got a pretty good amount of facemask there,” said O’Connell. “Not going to get into the call or no call and all that stuff.
“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. I’m going to do the same thing right now.”
The Vikings can’t seek comfort in a no-call when they committed 15 yards in pre-snap penalties and had three defensive penalties on third down. They had 148 yards on 18 plays in the first quarter and six yards on eight in the second. Los Angeles outscored them 23-6 in the final 36 minutes with chunk plays over the middle.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s similar to Minnesota’s game four days ago. On Sunday, the Vikings had crucial pre-snap penalties, including on the final drive that took them out of field goal range. The Rams used many of the same concepts as the Detroit Lions to beat Minnesota 31-29.
“A lot of the things that we see in the last two games, you’re probably going to see for the rest of the year until we stop it,” said Shaq Griffin. “That’s something that we’re going to fix more and more this week. Whatever the case may be, having different check calls pre-snap.
“It’s a copycat league, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t do the same thing their team did when it worked.”
It may be challenging to decipher what happened to the Vikings in the past four days. Minnesota was traveling across two time zones, playing a coach O’Connell coached under after a physical game against Detroit. There’s a random element to Thursday night games, and teams that played the Lions are 0-5 the following week.
“I’m not going to make any excuses about the short week, about penalties or anything like that,” said O’Connell. “We’ll get back to work.
“We’re a 5-2 football team with a lot of football out in front of us. But if we take for granted that we need to work, we need to improve, we need to get back to doing some of the things that helped us get to this point, 5-2, before these last two games, and we will do that.”
Furthermore, the Vikings are entering an easy stretch in their schedule. Two games of tape show how to hamper Minnesota’s offense and expose its defense. Still, the Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Tennessee Titans may not have the talent to exploit it. The Vikings also have 10 days to rest and get right before their Sunday night game against Indianapolis.
“Between last Sunday and tonight, there’s going to be some emotional kind of toll there,” said O’Connell. “I know they have a ton of belief in themselves and our team, what they have built this year.
“So I really challenge those guys. We’ve got to get healthy. We have a couple guys potentially coming back to our team that we haven’t had yet. We’ve got some guys that have had some nicks and bruises and things that worked through it on a short week, and they battled.
“Now we get the benefit of some time, but we’ve got to use it the right way.”
The Vikings feel that most of their issues are self-inflicted and that they’ll bounce back. They also have a sense of urgency, knowing that a season can turn sour quickly, especially after losing Christian Darrisaw to a knee injury.
“There’s good things to take away from this game. But there’s some things that we need to go back in and correct and look in the mirror,” said Justin Jefferson. “Just trying to figure out what we really want in this season.
“We’re off to a great start. We can’t let that die down, and we can’t let us go up the hill and then slide right back down.”
The Vikings started 5-0 and are 5-2 entering an easier stretch in their season. Still, it feels like they’re slipping. They’re committing dumb penalties, and opponents repeatedly gain yards on chunk plays. Minnesota would have benefitted from that facemask call. But Sam Darnold shouldn’t be throwing a pass from the opponent’s end zone down 28-20 to a 2-4 team.
