The Twitter feud between Patrick Peterson and Washington signals the unofficial start of NFL season

Ah yes, football is back. Nothing signifies the return of the NFL quite like the sounds of pads popping, coaches yelling and players getting into Twitter beef. Training camps have been underway for a few days and now thanks to Patrick Peterson, Josh Norman and DeSean Jackson, we can officially start football season.

It all started innocently enough in late July when the Twitter account @MySportsUpdate posted a Vine of Josh Norman getting “burnt” in coverage during practice. The pass wasn’t completed, but Norman’s coverage has been a topic of camp, so it was of interest to a lot of people. Including Peterson. Not only did the Cardinals corner see the tweet, but he responded to it.

And away we go with the first Twitter feud of the season.

There was literally no chance that wouldn’t get back to Norman and he quickly responded.

Josh Norman is the highest-rated cornerback in Madden and also apparently a big fan of memes.

Peterson didn’t respond to Norman on Twitter, but that wasn’t the end of the action. He replied to several Tweets over the next couple of days from others and at one point said he didn’t get beat in 1 vs. 1 situations.

When you are a cornerback, you can give up zero receptions for 999 plays and then get burned once and you’ll be sure to hear about it. So naturally, people tweeted Peterson about the time Norman’s teammate Jackson beat Peterson for a score. Peterson responded to that too.

Like Norman, Jackson wasn’t thrilled and he also was quick to reply on Twitter.

Both Jackson and Norman went beyond 140 characters after practice on Thursday.

“That guy? Come on, man,” Norman said about Peterson, via ESPN. “Be No. 4 and be happy. Come on, don’t talk about me, I’m not talking about you. I mean, I’ll still continue to work and try to be better than No. 1. Where that is, I don’t know, but I’m working toward that. Obviously he’s somewhere trolling other people. He should be worried about what he’s doing on the field and if he gets beat up this year. He shouldn’t be trolling me.”

Jackson complimented Peterson as a great player, but doesn’t want to be part of the conversation saying, “just try to keep guys names out of your mouth. Just go out there and play ball.”

So to recap:

This hasn’t quite yet escalated to previous NFL Twitter feuds like Richard Sherman vs. Darrelle Revis, but it’s a solid start to the 2016 season.

Oh, and if you are wondering, Washington plays Arizona in Week 13.