The Minnesota Vikings are continuing to win ugly, improving to 4-0 after a 15-10 win over the Miami Dolphins. Once again, the key theme with the Vikings hasn’t been the defensive success led by Brian Flores or the excellent special teams, with kicker Will Reichard having made every kick and returner Myles Price continuing his All-Pro bid.

All the conversation is focused on the offense run by head coach Kevin O’Connell.

Quarterback Kyler Murray has been up-and-down, but he dominated in the fourth quarter, completing 13-of-14 passes for 120 yards and a visual touchdown, as T.J. Hockenson smartly went down at the two-yard line to secure a victory. While the inconsistencies on offense are a problem, as is having just one touchdown in the last three games as a unit, it’s not the biggest issue.

Kevin O’Connell’s offense stinks at the basics

We can talk about how the offense can’t sustain drives, and that will be a topic for another day. Even so, when they are finding a way to attack, little things continue to hinder them. Just on Sunday, the offense had four false starts, one illegal shift, and one illegal formation.

In the first quarter, Murray hit a 21-yard explosive pass to Jordan Addison, but wide receiver Jauan Jennings was covering offensive tackle Caleb Tiernan, who was playing as a tight end. That illegal formation ended up forcing a punt. Procedural penalties have been brutal for the Vikings, and have gotten progressively worse. Getting lined up is something that you get taken care of in the first week of training camp, and it’s a problem for the Vikings.

Once the Vikings moved on from Kirk Cousins, procedural elements of this offense have become a major problem. Specifically with false starts and illegal formations, it’s been pretty brutal to look at.

False Start

Season	Amount	Rank
2024	25	T-10th Most
2025	26	T-6th Most
2026	7	T-10th Most

Illegal Formation

Season	Amount	Rank
2024	8	T-Most
2025	6	T-2nd Most
2026	1	T-9th Most

The fact that the Vikings continue to struggle to get lined up is incredibly frustrating. O’Connell is in year five, same with his offensive coordinator Wes Phillips. Plus, quarterbacks coach Josh McCown is in his third year. Plus, with the continuity the Vikings have on offense outside of quarterback, it raises a big question:

Why in the world is this a problem?

Is O’Connell and his staff focusing too much on play design and generating explosives? Getting your people lined up properly and not jumping on a false start is a big deal. Of the 58 false starts, 39 of them have come at home. This is a real issue that is getting progressively worse. Is it based on the elongated play calls that O’Connell has with his offense? They have also had 15 delay-of-game penalties and a number of timeouts called because they can’t get lined up.

The Vikings need to figure out how they are going to get this fixed and fast, because putting them behind the eight ball consistently with penalties is a problem even the best offenses can’t solve.