The Vikings’ pre-snap penalties have been a hindrance during their losses to the Lions and Rams, and they’ve spent timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties after breaking the huddle with little time on the play clock. On Friday, O’Connell called the adjustments to the offense a “constant evaluation.”
“As much as we try to give our players an advantage for their benefit, it’s a reflection of the value received off the things we do,” he added. “It could be great on one play, and then it could cause some things to be hard to execute, if the noise is more than you think it is, or put a little bit more on Sam [Darnold’s] plate. It’s, ‘Do we need to do that? Well, it’d be great to do it, but let’s be smart about this.’ I think to the naked eye, it might look the same. The intent is for our players to feel like, ‘Man, I love this game plan. We’re sharp. We should be able to be crisp and efficient.’”
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