It’s not too common that an offense will commit a false start penalty on their home field. The Vikings committed eight such penalties in front of their home crowd during the loss to the Ravens.
Oftentimes, false start penalties are the result of excessive crowd noise leading to miscommunication between the quarterback and the offensive line. That excuse could not be leaned upon after Minnesota’s loss in Sunday’s game.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell was irate about the excessive false start penalties. Minnesota was the first team in 16 years to be flagged eight or more times for false starts during a home game, and O’Connell admitted he wasn’t sure what was causing the plethora of mistakes.
“Whatever was going on with the cadence, or whatever it may be, just not acceptable in any way,” O’Connell said after the game.
J.J. McCarthy struggled in the game, in what was just his second week back under center following his lengthy injury absence. He completed less than 50% of his passes and threw one touchdown and two interceptions.
Those false start eight penalties cost the Vikings’ offense 40 yards. Minnesota cost itself a total of 102 yards by committing 13 penalties in the loss, whereas Baltimore was penalized just five times for 62 yards. O’Connell knows that type of sloppy play simply won’t cut it in the NFL, and he made clear that having such significant confusion at the line of scrimmage was not meeting the standards set by the team.
There’s still plenty of growing pains for McCarthy to go through, but having his team in sync and in tune with his cadence is a critical component of the job, and an area he’ll need to improve in quickly.
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