Cowboys vs Saints referee report: What to expect from a tough official in Dallas

The NFL did the Cowboys no favors by choosing Shawn Smith this week

The Cowboys enjoyed a strong win in their season opener, beating the Browns 33-17 and looking pretty good doing it. One of the very, very few negatives from the game was the fact that they drew 11 penalties in the game, tying them for second-most in the league through one week.

The good news, sort of, is that the Browns were called for just as many penalties in that game and slightly less total penalty yardage, so the impact of the penalties was more or less negated. If you read last week’s ref report, that’s exactly what the profile of referee Clete Blakeman surmised.

Let’s take a look now at what the Cowboys can expect from this week’s official, Shawn Smith.

Smith is entering his seventh season as a head referee and 10th season in the NFL in total. Interestingly enough, Smith is one of the least experienced members of his own officiating crew, as three officials on his crew have 20+ years of experience and two more of them will hit 20 next year. That usually bodes well for the crew as a whole, whereas last week’s crew featured two officials new to the NFL.

Throughout Smith’s tenure as a head referee, he’s developed a reputation for trying to mitigate teams’ homefield advantages. That’s reflected in a tendency to call more penalties on the home team. No crew called a larger percentage of penalties against the home team than Smith’s crew last season, which marked the third time he’s done that in six full seasons leading his own crew.

Last week, Smith flipped the script. He was on call in Chicago as the Bears pulled off a major comeback win over the Titans. In that one, the Bears drew seven penalties while the visiting Titans were hit with eight. That’s not a major difference, but it is unusual for Smith and his crew.

Historically speaking, Smith’s tenure has seen a pretty terrible record for the home team too. In his six full seasons leading a crew, Smith has seen the home team go 42-54, with the home team posting a losing record under Smith in all but one season of his. Last year, the home team was a dismal 3-14 in games called by Smith.

Having said that, the Cowboys have been largely immune to this trend. Smith has called three games for the Cowboys, and they’re 2-1 in those games. They ended the regular season last year with Smith on the call and beat the Commanders on the road, the first time they’d won as the road team under Smith. That also means the Cowboys are 1-0 at home with Smith on the call.

Meanwhile, the Saints have three games played under Smith as well, and all have seen them playing as the visitor. New Orleans is also undefeated in those games, their perfect 3-0 record fitting neatly into Smith’s reputation. One piece of information that might help explain this, though, is that the Saints were favored in each of those games; they are currently 6.5-point underdogs for their trip to Dallas.

Still, though, Smith is an official who’s known for calling things tighter on the home team and he’s grown very accustomed to seeing the home team lose. Given the Cowboys’ history of being highly penalized, regardless of how much their opponents are penalized, this feels like a perfect storm that could make this game tighter than the oddsmakers expect. It will certainly force the Cowboys to play with more discipline than normal in order to avoid the yellow flag becoming as much of an opponent as the Saints.