The NFL has chosen its officiating crew for Super Bowl 57, and veteran official Carl Cheffers will be granted the spotlight as referee for his third career Super Bowl.
NFL fans should prepare to see a lot of him during the league's biggest game of the season.
Why? Because Cheffers' crew calls a lot of penalties. In fact, they led the league in penalties per game during the 2022 NFL season, averaging a whopping 12.59 flags per game, per NFLpenalties.com. Only two other crews — those belonging to Tra Blake (12.56) and Scott Novak (12.06) — averaged more than 12 flags per game.
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This isn't just a one-year trend for Cheffers either. His crew has routinely been among the league leaders in penalties called per game during his time in the NFL.
Cheffers' crew has averaged the most penalties per game three times in the last decade. That includes each of the last two seasons. He has only placed outside of the top five in that category three times since 2013.
| Year | Penalties per game | Rank |
| 2022 | 12.59 | 1st |
| 2021 | 13.94 | 1st |
| 2020 | 12.29 | 3rd |
| 2019 | 13.31 | 11th |
| 2018 | 14.38 | 5th |
| 2017 | 14.67 | 2nd |
| 2016 | 12.78 | 11th |
| 2015 | 15.63 | 2nd |
| 2014 | 15.75 | 1st |
| 2013 | 12.75 | 7th |
As such, it's safe to expect that this year's Super Bowl will be more tightly officiated than usual. After all, last year's referee, Ron Torbert, came from a crew that called the second-fewest penalties league-wide during the regular season, so Cheffers' involvement should see an uptick in penalties, right?
That would stand to reason, and the data backs that up.
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Over the last decade, Super Bowls have seen an average of 11.4 penalties called per game. Cheffers called 13 and 15 penalties in his two previous Super Bowl appearances (Super Bowls 51 and 55 respectively); those were the second- and fourth-highest marks of the last 10 Super Bowls.
| Super Bowl | Referee | Total penalties |
| 56 | Ron Torbert | 6 |
| 55 | Carl Cheffers | 15 |
| 54 | Bill Vinovich | 9 |
| 53 | John Parry | 12 |
| 52 | Gene Steratore | 7 |
| 51 | Carl Cheffers | 13 |
| 50 | Clete Blakeman | 18 |
| 49 | Bill Vinovich | 12 |
| 48 | Terry McAulay | 15 |
| 47 | Jerome Boger | 7 |
So, expect some dirty laundry on the field on Super Bowl Sunday. It also may be fair to expect a lower-scoring game than expected. Why? Because the under has hit in 11 of the 12 playoff games that Cheffers has officiated since 2010, per The Action Network.
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NFL fans may be disappointed to see Cheffers' stats, but it's worth noting that the league has a grading system that it uses to select its playoff and Super Bowl officials. So evidently, Cheffers is doing something right and that's why the league chose him for the job.
And sure, there may be more flags that people would like to see in the Super Bowl, but hey, at least that means Cheffers will be unlikely to miss an obvious facemask penalty like the one that went uncalled on Tee Higgins' long touchdown last year.