The rookie dinner is one of the most time-honored traditions in the NFL, and it's something that's usually a fun night for everyone, except for the rookies who end up paying the bill. 

Korren Kirven and Cole Gardner found that out the hard way on Wednesday when the Buccaneers offensive line decided to hold its annual rookie dinner at a steak house in Jacksonville. 

After the group of hungry players finished their dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House, the waiter showed up with a bill that would send most people into bankruptcy: The check was for $26,357.31. 

I have to say, that looks like the tab my sister ran up at her rehearsal dinner, right down to the free child's ice cream. 

Anyway, the two rookies who were supposedly in charge of paying for the food  -- Kirven and Gardner -- seemed a little surprised when they saw the bill. 

"We were shocked at first when we saw the bill. We thought we weren't gonna make it," Kirven told ESPN.com. 

Kirven and Gardner are both undrafted free agents, which means it's pretty unlikely that they have $26,000 in spare money available to pay a giant dinner check. 

The good news for the two rookies is that they didn't have to empty their bank accounts because the giant dinner check was a prank. 

The Bucs' veterans had the large dinner check made so they could scare the rookies, and from the sound of it, the plan definitely worked.  

As it turns out, the rookies didn't actually have to put a single cent toward the dinner, which ended up costing roughly $3,000 (not $26,000). 

"We didn't have to pay for anything," Kirven said. "At the end, knowing they paid it was pretty cool of them."

Unfortunately for all of us, ESPN is reporting that the "Hard Knocks" crew was not on-hand for the dinner, which means we won't get to relive this prank during Tuesday's episode of the HBO show.