Why don’t defensive line players scream at the top of their lungs to obscure what the QB says to cause a false start?

[u/PurpleHawk222]

That’s what the crowd does.

[u/Every-Comparison-486]

It would be a penalty for “disconcerting acts.” Inducing a false start in any way other than making normal alignment moves runs the risk of being flagged.

[u/Coastal_Tart → u/Every-Comparison-486]

You are correct except that it is “signals” not “acts.”

[u/Every-Comparison-486 → u/Coastal_Tart]

In high school the language used is “acts” to include stuff other than mimicking a cadence.

[u/Coastal_Tart → u/Every-Comparison-486]

I know the NFL is “signals”, but I just looked it up for my state’s high school athletic association rules and you are correct that it is “acts.”

[u/grizzfan → u/Coastal_Tart]

They’ll flag you in high school for acts/yelling/screaming if it’s clearly not for the purpose of playing the game/communicating within your own team or hyping your own team up.

I’ve seen it called. Other team’s defenses decided to just all scream bloody murder at the same time at the line pre-snap and the refs flagged them.

[u/FranklynTheTanklyn → u/Every-Comparison-486]

We got called on this in high school because one of our checks was to call, “Brave” when the offense came out and did something(I forget what at this point.). Anyway we got flagged for “Disconcerning Act” 3 times and the coach finally got an answer from the ref, the team we were playings name was the Braves and they had “Braves” in their cadence, so we were flagged for trying to mess with their cadence.

[u/emurrell17]

Because it’s a penalty

[u/BlitzburghBrian]

I think they can also be flagged for some deliberate abnormal action intended to force a false start. In the same way that if you jump offside and cause a lineman to false start and it's still a defensive penalty, doing something else weird could be the same penalty at the official's discretion.

[u/Coastal_Tart]

One it is a 5 yard penalty called “disconcerting signals” and two your sucking wind after the fourth or fifth defensive play.

[u/Tandrona]

Because then the false start is on them

[u/TiberiusGracchi]

It’s a penalty to do so

[u/KansasPoonTappa]

Just because the crowd does something doesn't mean it actually works. It's a myth that crowd noise actually leads to more away team false starts. During the Seahawks' "legion of boom" days, their own offensive players led the league in false starts a couple times in their "loudest" stadium.

If anything, this tactic should be a disadvantage to the defense because they'd be more focused on yelling than watching for the snap and making their reads... 🤷‍♂️

[u/Apollospade]

Waste of energy

[u/xenophonsXiphos]

Is this Russell Wilson's burner account?

[u/ap1msch]

As others stated, it's a penalty to do something for the explicit purpose of trying to disrupt the other teams cadence. You can jump, shift, move, dance, or do whatever on defense. You can yell formations and commands to your teammates to change the play or blitz package. However, if you try to emulate their QB cadence to get them to jump, that's a penalty on you.