The Carolina Panthers pulled off an impressive Twitter meme that took 3 days to execute

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The growing intersection of sports and social media has yielded great results of late. The Blazers recently announced a trade deal with the Rockets in hilarious fashion through Twitter, and Jaromir Jagr has been having fun with his late-career free agency by posting his frustrations for NHL fans to see.

On Friday, the Carolina Panthers revealed the payoff of a Twitter joke their social media team had spent three days setting up, and established themselves as the current clubhouse leaders in the NFL when it comes to memes.

Any followers of the Panthers might have noticed a few tweets from the team over the past few days that seemed slightly off.

Jonathan Stewart has never really gone by the nickname “Air Stew” throughout his career. Unless this was a newly minted nickname that came up while watching game film in the locker room this offseason, this tweet appeared to be a somewhat forced, but content like that is not unheard of during these dog days of summer that lead into training camp. Anything to get the local fans excited, right?

But today, the Panthers’ intention became clear, after posting a tweet that would reveal the plan that a small team of social media experts spent days bringing to fruition.

Oh? Sure Panthers, why not, let’s play your game. Scrolling down the Panthers timeline, their recent tweets appear as such.

Have you caught it yet? Maybe a few more tweets will get you there.

Yes, you are correct. The Carolina Panthers spent three days setting up a Twitter joke that lead to the theme song of “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” to get stuck in your head. Chances are you’ll be thinking of a young Will Smith for the next couple of hours.

The joke is a fine one from the Panthers, inspired by the recent virality of a tweet from Richard Cook (aka @CookyWook), who revealed a similarly devious plot Tuesday morning. His seriesoftweetsledusers to spell out the iconic first lines of Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” another song beloved by internet commenters.

While not completely original, much credit is due to the Panthers social media team for jumping on this joke structure so quickly — Cook’s reveal happened on Tuesday and the Panthers were posting tweets to set up their own joke the very next day.

Football season is only 62 days away.