The Rams finally defended Justin Jefferson on third-and-goal with 6:29 to play in the third quarter.

Los Angeles tried earlier, of course, but with no luck. "Jets," the fifth-leading receiver in Vikings history, put on a spectacle for a national audience on Thursday Night Football, catching his first eight targets.

But the third-down stop was enough. It forced Minnesota to settle for three; the Rams took their first lead approximately four minutes later and never glanced back as they defeated the Vikings 30-20 in Head Coach Kevin O'Connell's first visit to SoFi Stadium since winning Super Bowl LVI under Sean McVay.

"We just didn't sustain enough, and we weren't on the field enough," O'Connell said after the game. "I mean 50 plays, again, when it's a game like this and their offense is making some plays and sustaining drives and kind of eating a lot of clock it can feel like an awfully short game to you as an offense when you're either scoring or going backwards, either self-inflicted or sacks, so we've got to just try to find a way to mitigate that."

Minnesota's fall to 5-2 featured trading first-half touchdowns for second-half field goals; committing a laundry list of "self-inflicteds" (a trend recently) that O'Connell mentioned was exacerbated by the noise level and struggles with the cadence; and costly decisions after a couple big connections.

Four plays before the Rams forced an incompletion in the end zone with bracket coverage on Jefferson, the Vikings star submitted the top highlight of the Week 8 kickoff game, bobbling then pinning a 27-yard pass on top of his shoulder pad with one hand. The next play call, unfortunately, had an opposite effect.

Thinking McVay was going to unfurl his challenge flag, the Vikings hastily rushed to the line, snapped and handed off to running back Aaron Jones, Sr. The Rams head coach opted not to challenge, and Jones was dropped for a loss of 4, sapping offensive momentum.

Jones got 3 back on a second-down run, and Jefferson slipped as he was bracketed on the third-down play, resulting in his only target that didn't end in a catch.

That led to a Will Reichard 23-yard field goal.

"I feel like these last two losses [have] just been self-inflicted," Jefferson stated. "The non-execution on certain plays that we need is definitely something that hurts us in the long run."

A negative outcome on even one snap can be one too many.

Minnesota was penalized nine times – five gifted the Rams offense a new set of downs, by the way – and Sam Darnold lost 28 yards on three sacks, the second-to-last of which happened with 5:10 left and killed a prospective game-tying drive that began with his 16^th completion this year of 25-plus yards.

Reichard was called upon again near the start of the fourth quarter after the Vikings offense fizzled deep in Rams territory. This time, Jones made a sweet catch for 25 yards along the sideline. But then O'Connell burned his first of three timeouts, while already in field-goal range, and the offense gained just 6 yards.

The rookie kicker drew the Vikings within one point instead of Minnesota possibly retaking the lead.

"That's definitely something that we don't like," Jefferson said about the red-zone shortcomings. "If you look at the scoreboard, we put seven instead of three a couple of those times, this game would be totally different."

Jefferson saved his best game so far this season for everybody to see, finishing with eight grabs for 115 yards. Unbelievably, eight is not a typo. He wasn't involved on a single pass after that goal-line sequence.

Jets can't do everything, but he does a lot. With 10 games remaining in his fifth NFL campaign, he moved past Randy Moss as the league's all-time leader for 100-yard games over a player's first five seasons (31).

"We just need to just stay on people's necks," Jefferson explained. "Just go out there and execute every single play for 60 minutes. That's what it comes down to – who wants it more at the end of the day? … No team is just a sad team, and we're just gonna walk all over [them]. That's not gonna happen."

The truth is that Minnesota must learn how to finish games the way it starts them.

Darnold capped an 8-play, 70-yard, game-opening drive with the type of patience that is defining his Renaissance seventh NFL season, pattering his feet in a clean pocket as tight end Josh Oliver uncovered on a shallow crossing route from the Rams' 5-yard line. Darnold flicked his wrist for a simple touchdown.

He was solid overall at the Rams, clipping 72% of his throws for 240 yards, two TDs and no turnovers.

"I thought Sam played well," O'Connell said. "We're continuing to grow as an offense with Sam playing quarterback. I think he was really sharp throwing the football – there were some nice plays between him and Justin."

Jefferson immediately looked the part of the Madden “99 Club,” recording three receptions for 44 yards, including two for 17, across the first seven plays. Oliver was the only other player Darnold targeted on that drive.

The Vikings offense was humming on its second series, too. Darnold extended his completion streak to eight; Jefferson had two more catches of 15-plus yards and Trent Sherfield, Sr., who usually does his best work as a blocker, hauled in his first touchdown in Purple on a similarly wide-open crosser from 10 yards.

A stellar first quarter increased the Vikings first-quarter point margin to 62, which is 23 points ahead of second-place Tampa Bay and counts as the third-best mark through seven games in the NFL since 2000.

"I feel like we've just gotta do the little things right and hash out the details, and I feel like if we do that we're going to be a really good offense and a really good team," Darnold said, "or I know we're going to be a really good offense and a really good team. It's little things that we can control."

Mental lapses capsized the good vibes.

Minnesota's third series was bogged down by procedural penalties – the Vikings were flagged for a false start and illegal formation on consecutive snaps (the latter was declined because the play resulted in an incomplete pass) – and netted 1 yard before Ryan Wright flipped field position with a 61-yard punt.

The Purple was plagued by yellow – and a 10-yard sack; Darnold held the ball a second too long on a play-action drop back and was twisted to the turf by Rams rookie Jared Verse – on its next drive, as well.

As a whole, the first half was a tale of two quarters, beginning beautifully with initial flawless offensive execution and ending ugly.

With just 35 seconds remaining and the Vikings at their own 3-yard line, Minnesota opted for a run by Jones instead of kneeling the football to run out the clock. Star tackle Christian Darrisaw suffered a knee injury when he was hit from behind and hobbled to the tunnel.

"Thought we could maybe pop a run," O'Connell admitted, noting the Rams defense was in dime personnel, which deploys six defensive backs and can be conducive to a run play. "Once that play happened and we lose C.D. and you're thinking about the 95-plus yards you've got to go, thought it was best at that point just to take it in, regroup and try to come out and move the ball in the second half."

Even one expectedly harmless play can change the flow of the game.

In the end, Darrisaw's absence was magnified. Minnesota's ground attack waned, its average rush going for 2.9 yards, and its last-ditch efforts were kaput with Darnold taking a sack in the end zone for a safety.

"It looked like he got a pretty good amount of facemask there," O'Connell said. "I told our team, officiating and all that stuff, for us to talk about that, for us to seek comfort in that is not how we're going to respond to this, it's just not going to happen. … I really don't have a comment on whether it looked like he got a piece of the facemask. They didn't think so, so they didn't throw the flag."

Darnold added: "It is what it is. I thought we could have done a lot to not put ourselves in the situation that we were in."