The Los Angeles Chargers effectively sealed the victory over the Minnesota Vikings with a late-game safety. However, it’s quite clear that the referees made a mistake and the safety should not have counted.
In the play, Rams defender Byron Young sacked Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold in the end zone, resulting in the safety. However, Young clearly grabbed Darnold by the facemask on the play, which should have resulted in a 15-yard penalty and an automatic first down for the Vikings.
But despite the clear facemask, referees did not throw a flag on the play, instead awarding the Chargers two points and the ball, which effectively ended the game.
After the game, referee Tra Blake said that the officials did not call a facemask because they were unable to see the play clearly.
“Well, on that play, the quarterback was facing the opposite direction from me so I did not have a good look at it. I did not have a look, and I did not see the facemask being pulled, obviously,” Blake said according to Ian Rapoport. “The umpire had players between him and the quarterback, so he did not get a look at it. He was blocked out as well. So that was the thing, we did not see it so we couldn’t call it. We couldn’t see it.”
Blake mentioned that the officials did meet and discuss whether or not Darnold was tackled by his facemask after the protest from the Vikings. However, he claimed that the officials couldn’t see it clearly, so they were unable to make the decision.
“On the field we definitely did discuss it because they did bring up a concern. We discussed it as a crew, but we weren’t able to see it on the field so we weren’t able to make that,” Blake said.
However, a photo has since emerged that suggests this is a lie – at least one referee was in a position to see the play clearly and make the call.
“Our view of the quarterback was blocked, we could not see anything” https://t.co/YzRFoehANp pic.twitter.com/4rQZbusJix
— ⚡️Garrett Ferguson⚡️ (@GarrettSprints) October 25, 2024
It’s not clear why the referees did not make the correct call when there was a referee who appeared to be staring right at the play with a clear angle of the tackle, and it’s even more perplexing to hear that the referees insisted that they could not see the call when they did indeed have a clear look.
Needless to say, this whole situation led to a lot of reactions on social media.
“I’m a GB fan but, that non call was one of the worst in let’s say 5 years, (there have been so many in the last 2 to 3 years), how does referee Tra Blake grade out in this time frame?” one fan wrote on social media.
“Looks like he’s looking right at him,” another fan added.
“Can these fools just once not duck the smoke and simply admit ‘I missed the call’??” another fan said.
“I am not a referee, but there’s no way that he could not see that penalty. I would make a better referee than those [darn] idiots. Start taking money away from the ref when they make bad calls,” someone else added.
“You stop the game all the time to view a play trying to get it right. But the rules ‘suck’ when you cannot view that particular play for whatever reason. Fix the rules. How can you let this happen. Fix it!!!!” another fan wrote.
“You call the penalty. You can always pick up the flag after discussion and say there was no penalty,” another fan added.
Needless to say, fans were not happy about this.
