Here’s something we’ll hope doesn’t become relevant on Sunday. NFL referee Shawn Hochuli and his crew have been assigned to Week 2’s game between the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, making it his fifth Saints game since being promoted to full-time head referee back in 2018. The Saints are 2-2 in games that Hochuli has worked, most recently seeing him and his crew in last year’s road win over the Seattle Seahawks.
Hochuli’s crew fouled the Saints 7 times for 90 penalty yards in that game, against 6 fouls and 53 yards on Seattle. That lined up with his trend on the year of penalizing home teams (107 fouls for 979 yards) less often than the visitors (116 flags for 1,030 yards). In their first game of the 2022 season, Hochuli and his officials worked a chaotic Bengals-Steelers tilt that saw a dozen flags fly: the visiting Steelers drew 8 penalties for 59 yards, whereas the hosting Bengals received 4 fouls and lost 27 yards.
