On the Minnesota Vikings’ first possession, they ran a play on 3rd-and-1 that saw tight end T.J. Hockenson take the snap from center and pitch it to Josh Dobbs in an effort to get the first down.

Dobbs was subsequently hit by Broncos safety Kareem Jackson, causing a fumble that the Broncos recovered.

About 24 hours after the fact, the league has let us know that the play described above should have been wiped out.

The league has suspended Jackson for four games for his hit on Dobbs that caused the fumble on that play.

This is the second suspension of the year for Jackson, who has a well-earned reputation as one of the NFL’s dirtiest players. He was originally given a four-game suspension for a hit on Green Bay tight end Luke Musgrave in Week 7 that was reduced to two games upon appeal. Based on that, he probably shouldn’t even have been on the field last night

Wonder if the NFL will go ahead and reduce this suspension, too. The fact that the NFL didn’t even wait until the middle of the week like they usually do to announce these sorts of things and, instead, did it on Monday night shows that they know they screwed up.

I’m not saying that this play was the reason that the Vikings lost to the Broncos last night. They had numerous opportunities to win the football game and didn’t capitalize on any of them. But getting hosed like this on the first series of the game certainly didn’t help, and an apology/”my bad” after the fact doesn’t do a damn thing, either. Either get the call right or don’t even bother.