Divisional Playoffs Referees pic.twitter.com/4kOJLp0uh3
Buy Chiefs Tickets— NFL Officiating (@NFLOfficiating) January 16, 2023
Fifth-year NFL referee Shawn Hochuli and his crew have been assigned as the officials for the Kansas City Chiefs’ game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC divisional round.
The last game that Hochuli officiated for Kansas City was the team’s “Sunday Night Football” game against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 11. During that game his crew threw eight penalty flags, with four on each team. Hochuli also officiated the Week 3 loss to the Chargers last season. In total, he’s officiated seven games for Kansas City since the 2018 NFL season and the Chiefs have a 5-2 overall record in those games.
In 16 games during the 2022 regular season, Hochuli’s crew threw 191 total flags, good for the ninth-most in the league. Their 42 dismissed penalties are the second-most in the NFL this year behind only Alex Kemp’s crew. They’ve also called three more penalties on home teams than away teams this season, showing a pretty even distribution of calls.
Offensive holding (44) and false start (38) penalties are called by this crew at a high rate compared to everything else. The next closest penalties are defensive pass interference (16), defensive holding (14) and unnecessary roughness (12), followed by roughing the passer (9) and defensive offsides (8).
The Jaguars have struggled with false start penalties this season (20) and that could prove problematic at Arrowhead Stadium, especially with Trevor Lawrence’s recent comments about crowd noise. Meanwhile, Kansas City led the NFL this season in defensive pass interference penalties (14) and that could be exploited by an underrated Jaguars WR corps. Jacksonville was also called for the fourth-most defensive holding penalties in the league (9). That’ll be something to keep an eye on if the Chiefs try to get more vertical in the passing game this week.
