INGLEWOOD, CALIF. — For the second time in five days, the Vikings lost to a NFC team that made the playoffs a year ago. Their 30-20 loss to the Rams on Thursday night, Minnesota’s seventh straight loss in West Coast night games, came with issues that are becoming themes after they fell to the Lions, and it might have come with a major loss on the offensive line.
What appeared initially to be a chance for the Vikings to reassert themselves after their first loss of the season on Sunday turned instead into a second straight loss. The Rams finished two drives for touchdowns in the second half, pulling ahead of the Vikings as their two scoring drives stalled in the red zone.
The Vikings played the second half without left tackle Christian Darrisaw, who went down grabbing his left knee at the end of the first half. Darrisaw did not need to be carted off the field, but did not re-emerge from the locker room after halftime.
Quarterback Matthew Stafford, who’d won a Super Bowl three years ago with Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell as his offensive coordinator and showed up on MVP ballots last year, was intercepted once by Byron Murphy Jr. Otherwise, Stafford reaped dividends from testing the Vikings’ secondary, mixing downfield shots with intermediate throws to the middle of the field. He completed 12 of his 16 passes for 174 yards in the second half, beating the Vikings’ man coverage for a 25-yard touchdown to Demarcus Robinson on a play where Shaq Griffin was flagged for pass interference and finding Robinson for another 10-yard score in the fourth quarter.
Stafford finished with four TDs and was not sacked.
