"It was the strangest thing I've ever seen", said one pound member. "One second he was screaming his head off, the next 'Boom, there goes the dynamite' you know", said another.
They were describing the strangest thing to happen in the Dawg Pound (Cleveland Browns rabid fans who sit close to the end zone) in, maybe forever. A man wearing a No. 16 Joshua Cribbs jersey was exhorting Cribbs' second kickoff return for a touchdown (103 yards) of the day, when suddenly his head literally exploded. Other members of the pound did what any rabid Browns fan would do in such a situation: they covered their beer to keep flying, ahem, debris from falling into it, said a 'hail mary' (the Catholic religious kind; not the kind the Browns heave in futility at most every game this season) and politely removed the headless body so that the next man up could take his place.
The man, identified as Jim Prudhomme of Euclid, was last heard to be shouting, "I've got Cribbs on my fantasy team too. And I get points for return yardage!" Shortly after that, there was a "bow-wow" and then poof.
Cuyahoga County coroner late Sunday ruled the death "an excess of unexpected offensive prowess". Pressed for further explanation, he stated, "it's like someone who takes heroin for the first time, only instead of doing a little bit, he unloads three syringes full of the stuff. Mr. Prudhomme, as with most Browns fans, did not expect such offense on Sunday and his system just couldn't handle it."
Said Mr. Prudhomme's friend, Gin Rome of Parma, "We're not used to seeing Browns set records of the good kind around here. Then to suddenly have two in the same game (Cribbs set an NFL record for kickoff/punt returns with his 8th of the season; Jerome Harrison set a Browns single-game rushing record with 286 yards)? Unbelievable. I guess Jim just couldn't handle the excitement. I'm going to miss him."
RIP Jim Prudhomme. And RIP this type of Browns offensive explosion.
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