Vikings had 3 very good reasons to be upset with the officials

Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer had plenty to be thankful for on Thursday. His team got the win, 30-23, over the Lions in Detroit and took a nearly insurmountable three-game lead in the NFC North standings. It was either that holiday spirit or the fact the Vikings still won that kept Zimmer from blasting the refs after the game, even though he had a real case to do so.

“We almost lost our composure a couple times,” Zimmer said. “We study each crew going into the game. I told them it could be like this today. They’ve got to play clean, smart football and ... I shouldn’t say anything else.”

There were three calls, or lack of, that went against the Vikings, and each one should probably get Tony Corrente’s crew dinged.

With 32 seconds left to go in the first half, Matthew Stafford completed a 41-yard pass to Kenny Golladay. That took the Lions from their own 25 to the Vikings 34-yard line.

Minnesota was called for two more penalties on the next two plays: a 22-yard pass interference call on Xavier Rhodes followed by a facemasking call that took the Lions to the 6. Stafford then found Marvin Jones for the touchdown, cutting the Vikings’ lead at the half to 20-10.

But was the 41-yard pass to Golladay really a catch?

The replay left the call as is. But it sure looks a lot like he never had control of the ball before he was down on the ground. The ball moved when it hit the surface.

Late third quarter, Vikings leading 27-13, the beat down proceeds. Case Keenum throws a pass over the deep middle to Stefon Diggs, who was mauled by Lions defensive back Tavon Wilson before he could make the catch:

Sure, the catch rule is vague and there’s a lot of gray area with it. But that’s a pretty clear example of pass interference.

On Minnesota’s next possession, Keenum gets sacked on third-and-14, with the Vikings still leading 27-16. And he got a taunting call, resulting in an 8-yard loss on top of the 5 yards lost to the sack.

But look at this so-called taunting:

Weakest taunting call ever? It might be.

They ended up punting from their own 8-yard line. Detroit returned the punt for 17 yards to set up a scoring drive that narrowed the gap to 27-23 with almost the entire fourth quarter left to play.

Officials called a total of 17 penalties in this game, dragging it out with some head scratchers.

The Lions had the chance to tie it up, or even take the lead, at the end of the game. They blocked a Vikings field-goal attempt with 1:27 left. Nevin Lawson scooped up the ball and had a clear path to the end zone. Fittingly enough, it was negated by a penalty when Darius Slay jumped offside:

Slay maintained that he was not offside. “They cheated me,” he said of the refs after the game.

In the end, it didn’t matter.