Refs screw Buccaneers out of incredible Antoine Winfield Jr. goal line fumble

Another game against the Falcons and another potentially game changing missed call by officials that seemingly screwed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Back in Week 5 officials missed an obvious facemask penalty on Bucky Irving that likely would have helped the Bucs seal a huge victory. We all know what happened after that, and it seems missed facemask calls are part of the deal with Thursday night games.

On Sunday the officials missed another call that would have greatly benefited Tampa Bay.

In the second quarter, Kyle Pitts was gliding toward what appeared to be his second touchdown of the game before he took his foot off the gas to celebrate. This gave Antoine Winfield Jr. enough time to catch up and seemingly punch the ball out at the goal line -- something he's had a knack for doing.

Antoine Winfield Jr. robbed of incredible goal line fumble on Kyle Pitts

However, after review officials determined there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the call. The semantics of that are important, because it certainly seems to skate around the fact that the Bucs essentially got screwed out of a potentially game-changing play.

NFL rules analyst Mike Peirera explained that officials didn't have a down-the-line angle on the play, which would have definitively confirmed whether or not Winfield had gotten to the ball before it crossed the goal line.

Officials could only make a ruling based on the slanted angles on the broadcast, which means they couldn't overturn the call.

"Replay is going to look for a down the line shot," Peirera explained. "They didn't have a down the line shot, so they had to make the determination really off of [the broadcast] look and you can't really tell. It's one of those rulings on the field that whichever way it was called was going to stand."

Had it been ruled that Winfield had punched the ball loose prior to crossing the goal line, it would have been a touchback. Atlanta wouldn't have scored, the Bucs would have gotten the ball back, and it would have been a massive momentum swing.

Instead, the calls stood and two drives later the Falcons took the lead on a Darnell Mooney touchdown catch. Tampa Bay had enough of a challenge staying out its own way on Sunday, but certaintly didn't need any extra help from the officials.

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