In what has proved a humorous moment for those online and who happened to be watching on television, the Cleveland Browns’ helmet reveal event went less than well for one of the staff members involved, as they fell into the pond with a tremendous splash when they tried taking the tarp off the helmet.
The incident occurred on Wednesday, July 23, when the Browns held an event on Lake Erie, the Great Lake that sits immediately to the north of Cleveland. The team was, during the incident, attempting to unveil in dramatic fashion their new alternate helmet, which is all brown with two orange stripes going along the top of it.
The event unveiling the helmet reveal was much-anticipated, as the tarp-shrouded helmet could be seen sitting atop a barge that rocked in the slight waves of the massive lake just off the shore near the Browns’ Huntington Bank Field, with fans of the NFL team sitting and waiting for the tarp to be stripped off so they could see their team’s new helmet.
But the event, as millions of people online quickly came to see, didn’t go off without a hitch. An employee who was sitting on the barge and attempting to take pictures of the inflatable helmet at the tarp was taken off and the new design was revaled took a bad step and was pitched off of the barge and into the chilly waters of Lake Erie with a tremendous splash.
The staff member appeared to be ok, just wet from falling in the lake. In fact, some on social media claimed that the fall into the lake was staged by the team in an attempt to make the helmet reveal go viral online, in which case they succeeded wildly, as it did take off online with millions upon millions of views across viral posts.
Adding to the humor of the incident was the reaction of those on the raft after the team member fell into the chilly waters. Namely, the Browns’ mascot walked over to the edge of the raft and, peering down, casually and half-heartedly tossed a flotation device into the water for the soaked staff member.
The incident blew up on social media nearly immediately, with accounts taking the clip and posting it with jokes about what happened in the unfortunate but somewhat entertaining incident. For example, an account named “McNeil” posted the clip and captioned it, in a post getting nearly one and a half million views, “Someone fell off the raft when the Browns did the helmet reveal. I just can’t 😂😂”
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Commenters on McNeil’s post took the opportunity to roast the Browns, leaving comments like, “It looks like it’s mostly a product of obliviousness–perfectly fitting for a Browns event”, “Can no one on the Browns see the field ?”, “Is there anything more Browns?”, and “You couldn’t script a funnier scene for a movie about the Browns.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video