Vikings offensive line is the main culprit as penalties pile up

CINCINNATI — The Vikings public relations staff started to research an undesirable team record after the first quarter of Sunday's 27-24 overtime loss to the Bengals.

The Vikings' record for penalties in a single game is 16. This Vikings team came close at Paul Brown Stadium, but avoided the infamy of an all-time high when they had 12 penalties accepted against them for 116 yards.

Ten of those yellow flags flew in the first half alone.

"That's obviously going to be an emphasis," receiver Adam Thielen said. "If we play clean football, we can move the ball all day. But when you start drives first-and-20, second-and-20, I think we averaged third-and-20 in the first half or something like that. You can't win football games doing that. It starts with the whole offense, right? There were receivers, every position group had mistakes."

Except the bulk of the flags – seven of 12, not including three that were declined – went against a Vikings offensive line that was out of sync throughout the loss.

Every offensive line starter got flagged at least once. Tackle Rashod Hill was called for two holds. Right guard Oli Udoh got nabbed for a hold and an unnecessary roughness for hitting a Bengals defender who was on the ground. Center Garrett Bradbury had two holding calls, one declined. Left guard Ezra Cleveland had a holding call. Tackle Brian O'Neill moved early for a false start.

"I have no idea about the false starts," coach Mike Zimmer said. "We haven't had hardly any of those in camp. We've been harping on them about where their hand placement is and things like that. We've just got to clean it up."

Two additional penalties on the offensive line, for illegal formation, were declined by Cincinnati.

"A couple times they called the tackles were too deep," Zimmer said. "But usually they warn, they tell me first and then give a warning. No one's talked to me about it."

The penalties snowballed early. The offense had four flags by the time quarterback Kirk Cousins had run four plays on the opening drive. The chains were moved farther and farther away from the Vikings' line of scrimmage, where the offense was taken out of its comfort zone and put into a dropback passing game.

The Vikings converted just 2 of 7 third downs before halftime, in large part because on five of those plays they were facing a third-and-15 or longer. Coordinator Klint Kubiak's play calls became narrower because of desperate circumstances, and Cousins couldn't leverage the play-action passes that resulted in so many big plays last year.

"Too many zones," Cousins said. "Those play-actions are designed for when people want to stop the run. Second-and-20, they're going to let you run, so there are too many zones."

Under Zimmer, the Vikings are routinely among the NFL's least-penalized teams. Last year, only six teams had fewer flags thrown against them than Minnesota. It's all the more reason for Zimmer to scratch his head after a season opener full of mistakes.

"We've still got a long ways to go," he said.