Vikings' eight false starts spark claim that Ravens used illegal signals; John Harbaugh shuts down accusation

The Minnesota Vikings committed eight false start penalties in Sunday's 27-19 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, good for the most by a home team in the last 16 NFL seasons. It was a stunning lack of discipline that affected players across the offense, both on the offensive line and at the skill positions. 

Vikings running back Aaron Jones suggested there was something more nefarious at play than lapses in focus from his teammates.

Jones said the Ravens' defense made calls and movements at the line of scrimmage designed to draw the Vikings into pre-snap penalties. He said they were also "playing a little game there" with snap counts.

"They're making move calls up front, so sometimes it sounds like it could be J.J. (McCarthy) saying 'hut,'" Jones said after the loss. "They're making move calls and you see them stem. So they're trying to get them to jump, as well."

Jones, notably, was the only Vikings player to allege that the Ravens' defense was at least partially to blame for the infractions. Minnesota head coach Kevin O'Connell pushed back on the claim and directed the blame toward his offense.

The use of disconcerting signals, whether verbal or physical, is prohibited. It is punishable by a 15-yard penalty. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh denied that his team did anything outside of the rulebook.

"One of the players said that," Harbaugh said on Monday. "I read five other players and the head coach said, 'no.' But it did catch my attention, yes. So I went back and I watched it. We didn't have a game plan for that. If we did, I would have been happy. But we're not going to do anything illegal. If you stem, you make a move call. You're allowed to say 'move.' You're not allowed to say 'set' or 'hut' or anything else or a cadence, which we never have done.

"But then I watched all of them, and none of them did we stem. Not one did we move. … They were doing a lot of on-two, trying to draw us offsides. And then they were doing some shifts where they could uncover man/zone and try to see what we were in. They jumped a few times when they were doing that to try to get to their alerts and their change of plays. So, like Coach O'Connell said, it wasn't anything we were doing."

Unforced errors plagued the Vikings in the loss, as they committed 13 total penalties for 102 yards. Eight of the penalties and 40 of the yards came from false starts. Minnesota's offense also coughed up the ball three times, twice by way of interceptions and once with a fumble.