Veteran referee Carl Cheffers has been assigned to Week 15’s game between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, which should be good news for Saints fans. The black and gold have more wins with Cheffers on the field than any other referee, having gone 14-4 since 2008.
That’s not to say Cheffers is playing favorites; the infractions he and his crew look for may just happen to be things the Saints do a good job avoiding. Or, more likely, most of his games with New Orleans fell during the winningest era in franchise history with Drew Brees and Sean Payton calling the shots.
At any rate: this year, Cheffers’ crew is averaging the seventh-fewest penalty flags per game (11.5) with a near-even split between home teams and visitors. They’ve fouled teams more often for false starts (28 of them) and offensive holding (24) than anything else, but the handsy Saints secondary must watch out — Cheffers’ crew has thrown 11 penalty flags for defensive pass interference in as many games.
New York averages just 5.4 penalties for 44.6 yards per game each week, which ranks in the bottom-10 in the league in both areas. New Orleans is averaging 6.1 fouls (which is 18th) and 55.5 yards per game (9th-most, troublingly), largely due to those defensive pass interference infractions. No team averages more yards lost per game to DPI penalties than the Saints (16.8). They’ll need to be careful in coverage and keep it clean.
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