Every sports fan knows that referees make bad calls. I tend to be of the opinion that all referee calls even out in the long term so no team is really at a disadvantage, but I still start shouting at the screen whenever Kellen Winslow gets a touchdown taken away because of a terrible ruling. Or when the Washington Redskins appear to be awarded a fifth down to score a touchdown. Or when Myron Lewis is called for imaginary pass interference.
And Bucs fans have been doing so for a long time. There was the infamous 'leaping' call against Simeon Rice, that allowed the Indianapolis Colts to re-take a missed field goal in overtime in 2003. The crowd was chanting 'bullsh**' on Monday Night Football after that call. The Bucs even managed to get a new rule introduced, when Bert Emanuel made a catch that would have gotten the Bucs into scoring territory late in the 1999 NFC Championship Game. But the ball touched the ground, and the catch was ruled incomplete. The NFL immediately introduced the 'Bert Emanuel Rule', which now allows the ball to touch the ground as long as it does not move in the receiver's hands. That didn't do the Bucs much good, though, as they lost another NFC Championship to the Rams.
But there's one upside for Bucs fans: at least when the refs make a bad call in the NFL, people don't die, unlike in Ancient Rome(h/t Deadspin). One gladiator's gravestone reads "After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately. Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis [head referee] killed me." When NFL referees make mistakes, a team loses some yardage or points. When Ancient Roman referees make mistakes, people die. Whoops.
So, are there any bad referee calls in Bucs history that I didn't mention?