The Pittsburgh Steelers are on the road in Week 17 and traveling across the country to Seattle to play against the Seahawks. Shawn Hochuli will be refereeing the game, per footballzebras.com.
Hochuli is the son of longtime NFL referee Ed Hochuli. He entered the league during the 2014 season and served as a back judge until 2018, when he was promoted to referee. He was promoted when his father retired, so the NFL has had a Hochuli refereeing dating back to 1992 when Ed was promoted to lead a crew.
Shawn Hochuli and his crew have officiated 14 games this season. He was the referee for the Steelers’ Week 11 loss to the Cleveland Browns. In that game, there were ten total penalties called. Nine of the ten were called on the Steelers, but three of those were declined, so there were six accepted penalties against Pittsburgh. One of the penalties was this controversial roughing the passer call against OLB Alex Highsmith.
There was another bizarre penalty in this game with DT Keeanu Benton called for delay of game—a rare call against a defender.
The only penalty called against the Browns in that game was an illegal use of hands call against OT James Hudson III. In total, the Browns had that one penalty for 10 yards, and the Steelers had six accepted penalties against them for 46 yards.
Over the course of all 14 games his crew has officiated this season, they have thrown 204 penalty flags, per nflpenalties.com. That is tied for the eighth-most of 17 total crews, so roughly average. That works out to 14.6 penalties per game.
The two most common calls from his crew are offensive holding (34) and false start (27). They have also called 14 roughing-the-passer penalties. For reference, last week’s crew led by Craig Wrolstad has only called roughing the passer three times this season. The Steelers’ pass-rushing tandem of T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith hit the quarterback at one of the top rates in the league. They were called for roughing last time, so that will be something to watch in this game. On the other hand, the large amount of offensive holding and false start calls will benefit them as opposing linemen will not be able to get away with holding or getting a head start.
