Fourth-year NFL referee Shawn Hochuli and his crew are set to officiate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Week 3 game against the Los Angeles Chargers according to Football Zebras.
You might remember Shawn’s father, Ed Hochuli, who was the NFL’s longest-tenured official before retiring in 2018. Shawn took up his mantle and was promoted to referee that year after serving as a back judge for several seasons.
Shawn’s last Chiefs game officiated was the regular-season game with the Buccaneers. Kansas City was flagged eight times for 57 yards during that matchup while Tampa Bay was flagged 10 times for 82 yards. Prior to that game, he officiated the Chiefs’ AFC divisional-round game against the Houston Texans in the 2019 postseason.
So far this season, Hochuli’s crew has called the second-most penalties in the league with 33 penalties through two weeks of play. A total of eight of those penalties have been offensive holding penalties, which is something to watch for Kansas City. So far this season they’ve only twice been flagged for offensive holding, but opponents have been flagged four times. Hochuli’s crew has also called four defensive pass interference penalties and four false starts so far this season.
The Chiefs are going to have to hope for a clean game against a flag-happy crew. One thing they’ll have going for them in this matchup is that they have the fewest penalties in the AFC West through two games (10). The Chargers have the most (18) and their top 3 penalties committed are the ones that Hochuli’s crew has called with the most frequency.
