NFL fans outraged as Byron Young faces fine after refs miss crucial facemask call: "Someone needs to get fired"

Byron Young won the game for the Rams against the Vikings with a late safety but talk was dominated by the missed facemask call that the referees should have made on that play. It would have given Minnesota a fair chance to keep the game alive and the game would have gone into overtime if they had scored a touchdown and followed that up with a two-point conversion.

However, all of that is a moot point because the referees missed the penalty call. The play was not reviewed during the two-minute warning when coaches cannot challenge and Minnesota was already out of timeouts at the point even if it had been allowed. It happened right in front of an official too, which will irritate the Vikings fans more.

It will come as no satisfaction to them that Byron Young is likely to get fined in retrospect. They took to X/Twitter to make their feelings clear about the state of refereeing in the NFL.

Some with a more conspiratorial bent of mind accused the referees of being bent and did not accept the innocuous explanation that Byron Young got lucky. Here are some more reactions on social media.

"That ref needs to be investigated" - said one.

"The officials will pay it for him with their parlay winnings" - opined another.

"Refs can fix games and do" - commented a third person.

Referees missing Byron Young's facemask grab changes narratives for both teams

As this was the last play of the game and the safety was awarded, the Rams won 30-20 against the Vikings. There are huge ramifications for the league after this result.

Los Angeles is now 3-4 and tied with the Cardinals and the 49ers in the NFC West. They play the divisional leaders, the Seattle Seahawks, next week and are on a two-game winning streak going into that matchup.

Minnesota, meanwhile, has now lost their last couple of games. They are 5-2 for the season, which is not a bad record but they now have a challenge to overcome in the NFC North. That division is expected to go down to the wire with all franchises having a winning record.

Had the Vikings won this game, they would have been 6-1 and the pressure would have been on the Lions to keep pace with them. Now, though, a win for the Packers in their match against the lowly Jaguars this week could see Minnesota fall to third place. The Bears could also defeat the Commanders to end up with the same record as Kevin O'Connell's team by the end of this week.

Two gamedays ago, the Vikings were flying high with a perfect record and leading the NFC with a 5-0 record. Now, they could be fighting to stay off the bottom of their own division going into Week 9. It is not a guarantee that Minnesota would have gone and won this game had Byron Young's illegal play been spotted by the officials. However, that the fans were robbed of that possibility should infuriate even neutral supporters.