NFL Network goes full “Heidi Game,” cuts off final minutes of Vikings/Jaguars

When the NFL Network announced earlier in the year that the Week 2 preseason contest between the Minnesota Vikings and the Jacksonville Jaguars would be featured on their channel, most people. . .including those well outside of the Twin Cities market like myself. . .assumed that it would be the entire game.

Not so much.

The Jaguars got a go-ahead touchdown from Brandon Wilds to take a 14-10 lead over the Vikings with less than two minutes remaining and the Vikings still holding all three of their time outs. Rather than sticking with the action at U.S. Bank Stadium, however, the NFL Network apparently thought it would be a much better idea to switch to the opening kickoff of the second game of their Saturday quadruple-header, as fans everywhere saw the beginning of the game between the Oakland Raiders and the Los Angeles Rams.

It was a bit of a throwback to the “Heidi Game” from many years ago. In that 1968 contest between the Raiders and the New York Jets, NBC cut away from their game to the beginning of the movie Heidi, and missed the Raiders scoring two touchdowns in the final minute to turn a 32-29 Jets lead into a 43-32 Raiders victory. The Vikings ultimately ended up falling short on their final drive, but it still would have been nice to see it anyway.

Again, as I said in an earlier post, it’s just a preseason game and ultimately doesn’t mean anything. Still, for the folks that live outside of the regular market for these games, it would have been appropriate for the NFL Network to show the game all the way to its conclusion. The game will be replayed on the NFL Network on Tuesday, 21 August at 9:00 AM Central if anyone would like to watch the last couple of minutes after missing it the first time.