This NFL team's Twitter joke was so savage its own coach apologized

Dude. Lighten up a little.

NFL coach Dirk Koetter apologized through the media to the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday ... all because of a harmless joke made on Twitter by his team's social media department.

First things first: Remember how the Falcons blew a 28-3 Super Bowl lead against the New England Patriots a few months ago?

Of course you do; it pretty much became an instant internet meme.

And now, with the stage set, on to today's deliciously petty NFL drama.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- coached by Koetter -- posted this promotional tweet for Bucs-branded fidget spinners on Wednesday. (🙄 right? But I digress.)

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Now, Jumping on a Hot Pop Culture Trend™️ is something brands such as pro sports teams often do online. Another things brands such as pro sports team often do online is Engage Other Brand in Some Witty Banter™️.

Which brings us to this reply by the Falcons, who are divisional rivals of the Bucs in the NFC South.

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To which the Bucs' social team replied using an image of two Tampa Bay players whose respective numbers are 28 and 3. (Get it? DO YOU GET THE JOKE ABOUT THE BLOWN 28-3 LEAD DESPITE HOW SUBTLE IT IS?)

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Anyway, kinda funny.

But not if you're Dirk Koetter, coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the ultra-serious world of professional sports where everything must be treated very, very seriously because it's so serious.

BEFORE HE EVEN TOOK QUESTIONS FROM REPORTERS on Thursday, Koetter offered a somber public apology to the Falcons.

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"Whatever that was supposed to be, what happened on social media yesterday, that's not what our organization's about," he said. "That was totally unprofessional and not smart, whoever's responsible for that. We want to be playing in the Super Bowl and we were home sitting on our butt while they were playing, so we got no room to be making fun of anybody that was in the Super Bowl, whether they won or not."

Koetter almost raises a valid point -- that the Bucs, who went 9-7 last year, have no room to make fun of a team that was thisclose to winning the Super Bowl. If this was a case of Bucs players talking trash about the Falcon's blown lead, he'd be right on.

But it's not. It's a moderately funny joke piggybacking off a popular internet meme; cracking such moderately funny jokes piggybacking off popular internet memes is partly what social media staffs are paid to do. Coaches, meanwhile, are paid to coach their football team.

Anyway, remember how this all started because of a post about fidget spinners?

What a time to be alive.