New England Patriots -- Apologize For Racist Auto-Tweet ... Our Bad

The New England Patriots have issued an apology for one of the biggest Twitter backfires EVER -- when the team celebrated it's 1 millionth follower ... by retweeting a user with a SUPER RACIST handle.

The NFL team decided to celebrate reaching the 1 million follower milestone by allowing creating custom webart for anyone who retweeted the team's original celebratory post.

The Patriots team account would then automatically tweet the custom art for ever single person who took part in the publicity stunt.

Problem is ... one of the users was using the Twitter handle "IHATEN**GERSS."

Long story short ... the Pats Twitter page retweeted the super racist jersey that had been auto-created to their 1 million followers ... and all hell broke loose.

The team eventually deleted the racist piece of art ... and issued an apology:

"We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future."

[Insert Bill Belichick disapproving scowl here]

No one in the Pats organization caught the problem ... and team's account RETWEETED the congratulatory message. Oops.

Now, the team is issuing an apology ... saying, "We apologize for the regrettable tweet that went out from our account. Our filtering system failed & we will be more vigilant in the future."