The "referee" at Vikings practice on Friday donned purple shorts and a purple hat, although pro scout Reed Burckhardt was not supposed to stare through purple-tinted glasses.
Burckhardt has been one of two Vikings pro scouts asked to carry a black-and-white striped official's shirt and yellow flags to oversee 11-on-11 drills, replacing the practice officials initially scrapped from training camp plans because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But Burckhardt and Ryan Monnens, the Vikings' director of pro scouting, will soon be relieved of their duties. Without preseason games to help rookies adapt to NFL officiating, head coach Mike Zimmer recently decided to bring back practice officials. A crew is going through testing protocols now, according to Zimmer, and will officiate the second half of camp.
"They were well-liked when they got started," coordinator Gary Kubiak said of Burckhardt and Monnens, "and after a few days they kind of start to get a hard time."
More than a handful of the Vikings' 26 rookies are expected to make the 53-man roster, and possibly contribute as soon as the Sept. 13 opener against the Packers. That makes upholding Zimmer's high disciplinary standards — Minnesota had the third-fewest penalties per game last season and has ranked no worse than 13th in his tenure — difficult when there are no exhibitions or, until next week, no practice refs to enforce what can be dramatic rule changes from college.
"We're going to bring those guys in and really tell them, 'Hey, you've gotta throw the flags. We've gotta get used to this,' " Zimmer said Friday via videoconference. "I believe in the first ballgame last year, we had quite a few penalties, and we just need to get them cleaned up. Same thing with special teams. We're going to have a lot of penalties coming there."
At the start of last season, then-rookie cornerback Kris Boyd saw his name on a list of most-penalized Vikings players — displayed on screens inside TCO Performance Center — after he drew five flags in his first three NFL games. One of Boyd's early infractions, defensive pass interference, causes rookies to see a lot of yellow. College allows contact on receivers after 5 yards; the NFL does not.
Boyd was flagged just once in his next 13 games and became a core special-teamer. Now entering his second season, Boyd is calling out younger teammates for fouls.
"Any little thing, like you can't sugarcoat it — it's a flag," Boyd said. "Pretty much just have to hold yourself accountable, and also rely on your teammates to also hold you accountable."
There can't be agreement on every call, right?
"Sometimes," Boyd said, "but then at times it's either the DB or the receiver being biased."
Practice film doesn't lie, so co-coordinator Adam Zimmer said coaches have used film review in meetings to pinpoint penalties, especially when missed by makeshift officials on the field. Players are being taught the bigger picture.
Defensive coaches presented how "the odds of scoring go way up," Zimmer said, if the defense is flagged even once on a drive.
No preseason also strips coaches and players from getting the feel for how NFL officials will call certain penalties, based on annual rule changes and points of emphases. The league's competition committee didn't make drastic changes to the rule book this offseason, expanding the defenseless player rule to include kickoff and punt returners as the only new in-game penalty.
But yearly lightning rods — among them, roughing the passer and pass interference — are at the top of coaches' minds, because how the penalties are enforced can change year to year and crew to crew.
Vikings rookies won't find out in a game until the score matters.
"You've kind of got to police it yourself maybe a little bit more than you have in the past," Kubiak said. "Normally the players, the coaches, everybody's got a feel for where the game is going, how it's going. And this year, it's going to be opening day before we find that out."
