Did The Zebras Cost Antoine Winfield Another All-Pro Selection?
October 30th, 2025
Royally screwed?
Generally, for someone to be named All-Pro, a guy has to make a lot of splash plays or just be quietly dominant.
Two years ago Bucs safety Antoine Winfield was both. He played the position about as well as one can play it, and he also made a ton of splash plays, including a pair punching the ball out as a ballcarrier was about the cross the goal line.
Winfield is playing pretty darn close to his 2023 level this season. And on Sunday, he would have had a game for the ages. Winfield had a pick-six and a strip-and-score called back, both on questionable calls.
On the strip-and-score the zebras claimed an official blew a whistle. To this moment, FOX, which broadcast the game, cannot produce audio that detects any whistle blown.
Winfield was down by contact on the pick-six, the zebras claimed, which was a dubious call.
Having a game with two defensive touchdowns certainly would have gotten people’s attention across the league. That’s the kind of stuff of legends taking over games.
That’s how guys get named All-Pro.
Joe has to wonder, unless Winfield pulls off the same thing against the Rams in four weeks on Sunday Night Football before the eyes of the nation, whether those two touchdowns getting erased from the record books turn out to haunt Winfield in his quest for a second All-Pro season.
And Joe is also confident Winfield has a bonus clause in his contract that he gets extra Team Glazer loot if he’s named All-Pro.
October 30th, 2025 at 4:27 am
One game. AWJ got robbed vs Saints but that was just one game. He hasn’t put that kind of performance together in a long time. He had an All-Pro day but he hasn’t put that kind of season together for almost two years.
October 30th, 2025 at 5:07 am
The caption in the pic pretty much says it all, Joe.
October 30th, 2025 at 5:27 am
According to The Ronde Barber Show, the league confirmed both were mistakes and the same official made both errors. That person needs to not work another game all year a should have to go through a recertification process to be a NFL official again. Just ridiculous.
October 30th, 2025 at 5:45 am
Maybe Joe has stats to the contrary, but the eye test says Winfield hasn’t had the same productivity to date as he did in 2023. Before the Saints game, I believe it was All-Pro voter, The Sage of Tampa Bay sports, Mr. Bill Currie Ford himself—Uncle Irv—who said he’d seen too little of Winfield this season, suggesting he was not playing up to his contract.
The remaining voters don’t have nearly the same proximity to Winfield’s play that Ira does, so what can we reasonably expect their opinions to be?
October 30th, 2025 at 5:50 am
Antoine got robbed and, being the guy he is, he humbly didn’t complain, kept smiling. He is playing well and I hope it keeps going.
From what I read, Refs get rotated and do have other accountability measures. These should be applied on them. Their errors can win and lose games. The Saints played awful, but we could have lost that game. NFL should be stepping up and firing these refs. No rotation-lemon dance. Unacceptable.
October 30th, 2025 at 6:11 am
The person that said they blew a whistle when they didn’t needs to be FIRED. Period. That’s straight up manipulating the game. Calling down by contact when he didn’t have the ball yet to be knocked down is a legitimate stupid mistake. If the same person really did both they should be fired AND INVESTIGATED though.
October 30th, 2025 at 6:17 am
Blowouts are bad for tv ratings. It’s that simple. TV networks are paying the nfl billions to air games. Storylines are created and refs are no different than the phony refs you see in wwe. It’s all about viewership. The Bucs were the best team in football and Baker was the mvp leading up to the lions game, and now they barely get a mention on espn… why? Because it was leading up to a MNF game aired on ESPN. All about viewers.
October 30th, 2025 at 6:38 am
This league has a big problem. This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a league wide epidemic. Without question it’s one of 2 things and neither is good. Either they employ incredibly incompetent referee’s for the most popular professional sport in the country that makes tens of billions a year or there’s major corruption going on. Something has to be done. The BLATANT calls and no calls across the league even on obvious penalties is putting a very dark cloud over the NFL. If it wasn’t for my decades long love of the Buccaneers I’d give the NFL the middle finger permanently.
October 30th, 2025 at 6:45 am
What I’m curious about is, did they ever identify the official who blew the whistle? The NFL is constantly fighting against popular opinion that the referees are determining the outcome of games. Goodell says no they’re not. Well, the referee that blew the whistle, if one did, definitely made a mistake that could have affected the outcome of a game. He should be identified and reprimanded, if not fired. I’ve not seen enough tape of the other play to definitively determine if Winfield was down by contact.
October 30th, 2025 at 6:59 am
All the league needs to do is allow coaches to challenge anything that is perceived as a mistake by the officials-problem mostly solved.
October 30th, 2025 at 7:23 am
We need a Dubious Call Tracker for the Bucs. A list with all video evidence. Joe, could you spare a couple of interns for that task?
October 30th, 2025 at 8:10 am
If the NFL determined that both of these calls were errors, why can’t they look at these calls after a play if a team challenges so the player and team doesn’t get screwed?
Given that the officials are human, the possibility of errors or corruption will always exist. If the NFL doesn’t do everything it can to minimize the possibility for this when there are ways they could, it is not a good look.
October 30th, 2025 at 8:25 am
On paper, it’s rough.
The league now has a central overseeing body in New York.
Sports betting is getting big.
They use a digital measurement now rather than chains.
The camera angles.. limited.
I mean, are we serious?
I love the nfl and hope they can clean up what seems to be very troublesome stuff.
October 30th, 2025 at 8:26 am
..before they lose fans.
Not to mention how hard these players and coaches work!
October 30th, 2025 at 8:32 am
Time for some accountability here….the ref who blew the whistle needs to make himself known
October 30th, 2025 at 8:39 am
Tbbf, that’s exactly my point (see above).
October 30th, 2025 at 9:01 am
Is it the refs on the field or, the refs and powers that be in New York? Replays are useless to the teams and fans, but seemingly very useful to New York & Vega$.
October 30th, 2025 at 9:07 am
League needs (and seeming can) make an in-season adjustment to how it implements these reviews that are done remotely where they override the original call or non-call. The criteria needs to be evidencence that is flagrant or blatant, something stronger than “clear visual evidence” or whatever it says now. Changing a play without a coaches challenge based on the ball moving a micron in the players hands or a shoelace grazing the sideline is what I’m talking about. Or an acid trip where someone imagines a blown whistle to rob Winfield of a pick-6.
October 30th, 2025 at 9:56 am
The last two Buc’s games have had some of the worst NFL officiating I’ve seen in 50 years of watching the NFL!!!!!!! The bad thing is it’s not just during Tampa’s games but across the NFL!!!!!!!!!!! The changing of the outcome of games, based on bad calls or missed obvious calls by the zebras, is TOTALLY DESTROYING the LEGITIMACY of the NFL!!! If I can see this , so can the Commissioner!!! Since he refuses to correct this, it is time for his replacement!!!
October 30th, 2025 at 10:01 am
yes they may have cost him.
October 30th, 2025 at 10:04 am
Continued… The NFL team Owners should take swift action before the value of their investments start plummeting!!
October 30th, 2025 at 10:05 am
At this point I don’t think he’s earned All Pro this season.
If he can maintain that level of play the rest of the year, he will.
October 30th, 2025 at 10:07 am
It’s 100% corruption. I saw a good video breakdown on youtube about it.
The Bucs were the most heavily-lopsided bet of the day in the entire league, with 90% of bettors betting on the Bucs to win.
Prior to the game, the CEO of Fanduel put out a tweet saying that ‘We need some help from the Saints on this one’ talking about the bets taken in.
Well, the Zebras (and the NY Office) tried their best to keep the game close, but to no avail. Good, screw them and screw that corruption and lack of integrity. 😡
October 30th, 2025 at 10:08 am
As to officiating, if enough national stink is made, the NFL will become gunshy against certain teams…which includes us.
So the more it smells the better!
October 30th, 2025 at 11:22 am
Potentially, but a nice consolation would be getting Tweeze & Tykee pro bowl nods they hopefully will need reserves for because they’re too busy prepping for their last game. If you get my drift.
October 30th, 2025 at 12:09 pm
You need more than 1 good game against one of the worst teams in the league to be an all pro anyways.
October 30th, 2025 at 12:10 pm
The real question is will this cost him the Gold Jacket when it all said and done?
October 30th, 2025 at 1:11 pm
BucU Says:
October 30th, 2025 at 6:38 am
If it wasn’t for my decades long love of the Buccaneers I’d give the NFL the middle finger permanently.
———————
Me, too. @Love-spiral, I listen to games. Long-time Bucs Radio fan here. Are they actually using digital BS, and not the chains for down markers? I don’t care if it’s the 21st century. THAT crap should stop! You know how easy it is to manipulate digital?? Let’s see: Jets, Lions, Aints games were filled with atrocious referee calls/no calls. Why did the Lions need all that zeb help? AWJ is an excellent player, and does his father proud. He hasn’t done much this year for All-Pro, so not surprised. Hope his Aints play shook him awake. I’m kicking back, and catching my breath during this Bye. Gotta get prepped for 9 more games of Cardiac Bucs. LOL.
October 30th, 2025 at 1:33 pm
I think all leagues need to recognize that with the added gambling, everything is being watched even more carefully. They must work to ensure the refereeing is consistent and the refs are held accountable for mistakes. The league needs to acknowledge when mistakes happen. They have to be transparent. No league can afford to have their ref’s integrity questioned.
Having said that, he was definitely robbed on the scoop and score. There is no audio evidence the whistle was blown.
The pick, depending on a ref’s angle, he might not have realized that full possession of the pass happened when he was away from the defender. On that one, I can give the ref the benefit of the doubt. Instant replay, we can see he didn’t gain possession until he was free from the defender and should not have been ruled down by contact, but that was at slow speed, real time speed, not so sure.
October 30th, 2025 at 5:39 pm
Both Tykee Smith and Winfield Jr. are ripped and excellent tacklers. Maybe we should tell them to bulk up a tiny bit further and move them into the linebacker positions and draft some safeties? They’d make excellent coverage linebackers!
October 30th, 2025 at 7:12 pm
Listen here, fellas — I been droppin’ hints all week, but some of you just don’t get it. You gotta keep these opinions to yourselves, capisce? Our friends in New York don’t like all this chatter — makes the family business look sloppy. You keep pushin’ it, and sooner or later someone’s gonna do a little housecleanin’… and none of us wanna find out who ends up in the trash.
October 31st, 2025 at 9:45 am
Focusing on the refs doesn’t seem to be the big picture
October 31st, 2025 at 11:55 am
The officials have always been suspect in their penalty calling against the Bucs and the lack of penalty calling against opponents of the Bucs, except of course when Brady came to town then it really slowed down