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Nearly everyone outside of the Carolinas and Louisiana expects the Buccaneers to be the stiffest competition for the Falcons in the NFC South this year. Dirk Koetter and Mike Smith both had stints with Atlanta, of course, and are old school coaches who stress respect. It’s not overly surprising, then, that Koetter did not take well to his team’s Twitter account making a tired 28-3 joke about the Falcons.
The whole kerfluffle started with the Falcons playfully responding to the Bucs on Twitter, followed by the Bucs playfully responding with the joke that has made me want to crack my skull on my desk for the past few months.
Dirk Koetter apologized for the Bucs’ 28-3 tweet in response to the Falconshttps://t.co/oCdBvWguCp pic.twitter.com/LYNzDnNcbL
— SB Nation NFL (@SBNationNFL) May 25, 2017
Koetter’s absolutely right that the Buccaneers, who have not been to the playoffs in a decade, should really avoid trash talking a division rival who just made it to the Super Bowl based on the score of the Super Bowl. It’s also a lack of creativity, which is always a major no-no. I’m also sure that Koetter has no interest in giving the Falcons more motivation, given that they’re already a motivated bunch and NFL teams have absolutely no trouble turning even mild disrespect into fuel for the fire.
At the same time, these kinds of Twitter back-and-forths have been become a fixture, and I don’t know if it was worth Koetter throwing his own team staff under the bus to make this point. Either way, the Falcons won’t lack for motivation against this Bucs team.