Return of the House of Thrills

I am extremely disappointed that the Browns did not live up to my expectations (84-0, as you may recall). Nevertheless, I'll take the win.

In all sincerity, "wow!" Remember, it took the Cleveland Browns almost four full games last season to score as many points as they scored yesterday. In fact, yesterday's offensive outburst alone would've accounted for almost 20% of the points (276) that the team scored all of last season, and almost 15% of all of the yardage (4,233 yards) that the team gained last season.

Any way you look at it, the offensive numbers are just beyond belief. The Cleveland Browns threw five touchdown passes and gained 226 yards rushing (216 from Jamal Lewis). Are you kidding me? As the numbers bear out, the offensive line's performance was, in a word, tremendous.

And you know what else? It was thrilling. Yeah, that's in large part because the defense stunk, but it was still thrilling. That's saying something, because in some respects the worst part about the Browns performance hasn't been the losses, but how they've managed to bore us all to death on their way to them. Most of their games have needed a laugh track, and on those rare occasions when they have won, the games have usually been snore-fests. That sure wasn't the case yesterday.

Even the old time fan attitude was back. Chad Johnson jumps into the Pound and gets doused with beer? Those are the Cleveland fans that I remember.

For now, I'm eating a little crow, just like almost everybody else who fancies themselves a football pundit. After a week like this, who would've thought that the Pumpkin Heads would come out and play like that? Romeo and Phil definitely had the last laugh of the week yesterday.

As for me, all I can say is that if this is what crow tastes like, I'd like seconds.