- While pass rushing, the giant armored dome around Linval Joseph's head unavoidably touched the giant armored dome around the quarterback's head. What was a text-book third-down sack and forced punt turned into a touchdown, two plays later.
- Terrified to make any contact with the quarterback in the open field, Anthony Barr waited for the player to slide. Taking advantage of the situation, the quarterback leapt through the air, over Barr, throwing his body into three defensive players, picking up the first down. This drive-extender led to a field goal.
- Because he had just gotten burned by the rules, Barr-- once again chasing the quarterback-- was more aggressive, legally grabbing the player's shirt. As the player started to fall over backwards, Barr relinquished his grasp-- and was still called for the foul (a so-called "horse collar" tackle)! This foul gave Bills first and goal, which led to a touchdown.
The rule changes, which Harrison Smith described as not being "physically possible" to follow, directly led to seventeen points. And as a cherry on top, Vikings were also flagged by the new kickoff rules, when two players had the audacity to block the same guy. What an egregious episode!
This doesn't excuse the Vikings' poor pass protection, which led to two turnovers, putting the defense in a hole. But in a game where the margins are tenths-of-seconds razer thin, these rules directly swung the game in spite of those other mistakes.
I've written about the mentality and origins of why this sport is heading in its present direction, here and here. I'm really starting to think that this sabotage is deliberate Leftist "convergence": the NFL is killing its own ratings, yet keeps drinking the poison. How could it not be by design?
And the sport is only going to continue to get less and less recognizable: the announcers in numerous games have already let the cat out of the bag, asking hypotheticals about "when" the NFL bans kickoffs altogether after this season-- despite the fact that I've literally never seen a player get injured on kickoffs.
Combine all of this with the every-five-minutes commercial breaks, with Cultural Marxist advertising (glorifying black men, making white men look like idiots constantly, women being the wise and calm purveyors, and so on), the anthem-kneeling debacle... there are better things on which to spend my time.