Entire stadiums have booed them. The Patriots' Bill Belichick grabbed one by the arm and the Redskins' Kyle Shanahan was so hopping mad he followed one into the tunnel after the game.
But it took the team that Vince Lombardi built, playing in a Monday Night Football headliner, to put the NFL's latest labour headache locked-out officials and their struggling, under-fire replacements front and centre for the nation.
Is this where the NFL's lockout of its regular refs comes to an end? On a call that many believe cost the Packers and their Cheese head-wearing followers a win at Seattle?
The NFL stood fast, giving no sign Tuesday that it was close to reaching a new labour pact with the referees' union. But the outrage grew beyond NFL players like Falcons tight end Anthony Gonzalez, who tweeted: "How do you miss that? Pop Warner refs would have gotten that right."
LeBron James tweeted he was "sick" about it and Dirk Nowitzki said he was "not gonna watch another nfl game until real refs" return, while fans pretty much everywhere except Seattle concluded that Green Bay was robbed.
Some threatened to boycott until order is restored and others tried to pull the plug on their NFL satellite television packages, only to be told that they can't cancel in the middle of the season.
"I don't really want to give them money if they're going to be greedy about things," said Packers fan Chris Kroening, who lives in Milwaukee. "It's just not that fun to watch any more. I can find better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than watch refs make bad calls."
