Mile High Report
The NFL has announced officiating crews for the Divisional Round in the 2026 NFL Playoffs. For the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills game, they drew Carl Cheffers crew.
Some interesting things of note from Cheffers in general is that his crew calls a lot of penalties on average. According to officiating stats, his crews called an average of 14.63 penalties for 110.63 yards per game. That topped the league average by two penalties and 10 yards per game. Another thing of note is that home teams have an abnormally high win percentage for games he officiates. Over the past five seasons, home teams have won 59%, 61%, 59%, 75%, and 56% of the time when Cheffers crew was officiating the game.
As for the Broncos specifically, he has presided over four games during the Sean Payton era. Denver was 3-1 with the most recent game being that win over the Dallas Cowboys earlier this season. All four games saw fewer penalties than Cheffers’ average per game, with Denver being called for more penalties in two of those four games.
All in all, it looks like the Broncos got a good, unbiased crew. Though Cheffers is known for calling a tighter game, it seems to be fairly evenly distributed. I can’t complain. I’m just glad we didn’t get Shawn Hochuli this weekend.
