Kevin Seifert
MINNEAPOLIS — How could the Minnesota Vikings commit eight false start penalties Sunday, the most by a home team in the past 16 seasons?
Players and coaches offered a variety of explanations after a 27-20 loss to the Ravens, including the possibility that the Baltimore defense was making calls designed to simulate quarterback J.J. McCarthy‘s cadence.
“Sometimes it’s hard to hear,” Vikings running back Aaron Jones said. “They’re making ‘move calls’ up front, so sometimes it sounds like it could be J.J. [saying], ‘Set hut,’ but they’re making move calls and you see them stem and so they’re trying to get them to jump as well.”
Asked if the Ravens were playing a game with snap counts, Jones said: “Yeah, they’re playing a little game there, too. So that’s what they get paid to do. And we just got to lock in a little more.”
NFL rules prohibit the use of “acts or words by the defensive team that are designed to disconcert an offensive team at the snap.” It can be difficult for officials to distinguish between such acts and genuine defensive calls, however, and it is rarely penalized during games.
Coach Kevin O’Connell said he asked some players during the game if there were “some calls on some of the motions.” But ultimately, he said: “I did not get any indication from our guys they were doing that.”
Right tackle Brian O’Neill, who jumped three times, did not want to comment on how the Ravens might have contributed to the penalties but did say: “I’ve got to be better and I will, and we’ve got to be better as a unit to figure it out.”
McCarthy, making the fourth start of his career, said he wanted to take full responsibility for each penalty because “as a quarterback, you’re the orchestrator of the orchestra.” He also declined to address the Ravens’ potential role.
“It’s just the level of focus,” McCarthy said. “It’s as simple as, ‘Remember the snap count and execute it when the ball is snapped.'”
The last time an NFL team committed eight or more false starts at home was in 2009 by the Buffalo Bills (nine). The Vikings’ eight false starts are tied with the 2005 St. Louis Rams for the second-most by a home game since at least 2000.
The flags went against players across positions. In addition to O’Neill’s three false starts, left tackle Christian Darrisaw and center Blake Brandel each committed one. There was also one apiece against McCarthy, receiver Justin Jefferson and tight end Ben Yurosek.
The Vikings averaged a season-high 6 yards per play Sunday, but they gave back 40 yards on the false start penalties alone. Even so, the Vikings had the ball and a chance to tie the game late in the fourth quarter but McCarthy’s pass to Jones on fourth down fell incomplete.
“We still had a chance to win the game, which is crazy,” Darrisaw said. “We should have had no chance because we didn’t put ourselves in position.”
The Vikings also committed three turnovers, and O’Connell bemoaned the mistakes afterward.
“The pre-snap, whatever was going on with the cadence or whatever it may be, it’s just not acceptable in any way,” O’Connell said. “And we’ve got to get it fixed, and we will. But the penalty situation and the turnover situation being what it was, when you average over 6 yards of play on offense, it’s all for naught if you’re going to be giving back so many of those yards in different capacities. We’ve got to find a way to, first and foremost, correct whatever the issue was.
“Normally we can do that in game if there’s an issue. But there just seemed to be a flinch here and there way, way, way too much. So if there was any uncertainty of what we were doing, that obviously is something we’ve got to get corrected no matter who’s in the game and all those things.”
