On a misty January night in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Arizona Cardinals faced the Carolina Panthers with a shot at Super Bowl 50 on the line. Things weren't going the way of the Cardinals, trailing 42-10 after eventual MVP Cam Newton's fourth score of the game. Defeat was inevitable.

Being cavalier while running the Cardinals social media accounts, I decided to get ahead of the trolls. With six minutes left it was time to give ourselves the crying Jordan treatment. The tweet took off immediately garnering over fifty-thousand retweets even being mentioned during the NBC broadcast.

The Cardinals may have lost the game but won the internet with numerous national and international outlets reporting on the tweet.

"Knowing that a torrent of 'Crying Michael Jordan' memes were right around the corner, the team itself tweeted out the ubiquitous image."

"The Cardinals’ social media team — sensing they were the next meme victims — posted the photo mid-shellacking."

"When the Arizona Cardinals lost to the Carolina Panthers in the NFC Championship Game two weeks ago, the Cardinals tried to preempt wisecracks by posting a crying Jordan photo on the team’s official Twitter account, with the message: “Is this what you want, Internet?!” It was retweeted more than 50,000 times."

"It's hard to say whether the decision, which was made well before the game was officially over, was a good or bad one. But what we do know is this: soon thereafter, Twitter lost its mind."

It was a smart move on the Cardinals’ part. Instead of just getting pummeled with the meme—and you know it was going to happen—the team embraced it.

Arizona lost the game, but it definitely won the Internet.

"Arizona tweeted the Michael Jordan 'crying face' meme after getting hammered by the Panthers last night - and the internet had a field day."

"The Cardinals' Twitter was definitely aware of what was going on and rather than hide from it, they embraced it and went very meta with the meme."

"On a day when the Cardinals could not have played any worse, we should all give them a little credit for poking fun at themselves with the above tweet."

"This appears to be THE FIRST TIME IN SPORTS HISTORY a prominent American sports team tweeted crying Jordan itself during a season-ending playoff loss. Amazing times we live in."