HELL YEAH!!!

It started slowly, but the Browns whipping of the Ravens was very sweet. The 4th quarter was probably the most pleasurable you can get as a Browns fan. Check out these scoring drives: 5 plays, 58 yards, TD, then 11 plays 85 yards for a FG, then the 3 play, 94 yard clincher. Awesome. Add in a great Anthony Henry interception and two HUGE back-to-back sack-then-strip plays from Kenard Lang and it adds up to the biggest victory since 2002.

And especially gratifying while watching from home was the pathetic snickering of the NBC pregame and halftime broadcasting teams. Not only were we subjected to a really, really long pregame special on Deion Sanders return to the NFL and how he was going to high-step like it was 1999, we got to see Marino and Sharpe eat crow (sort of) after prediction a Ravens blowout. Heck, even with the game tied at halftime they were going on about the Ravens "inspired" play and showed exactly zero Browns highlights. They actually showed extra highlights of Deion doing nothing on a pass play and getting immediately tackled on a punt return. Ooooooooh! Hehe.

OK, quick serious analysis:

The offense really struggled in the first half. Garcia looked bad, William Gren looked worse. Alarmingly, the constant short passes and dump offs looked a little dink+dunkish.

The running game did not hold up to the Ravens defense (few do). Late in the game they got some things going, and that's a good sign.

I'll take Suggs over Green any day. We missed him today.

Winslow looked pretty good as a receiver, but hit or miss as a blocker. You can tell he's got a lot to learn but, still, he made a positive impact today. At the least, he won't be a bust, and we all expect him to be significantly more.

The defense looked good all around, and not great anywhere -- I'll take that.

Chaun Thompson looked good. A little undisciplined maybe, but his aggresiveness paid off today.

If the offense will consist of all we saw today, we'll have to hope for more broken plays where Garcia can freelance through the air. But hopefully there will be more to come.

Peter King, one of the few big national writers saying the Browns would be solid, must be feeling all right this afternoon.

How about Kenard Lang!?!?! The guy basically put away the game.

Ray Lewis is a good football player. I can't stand him.

Quincy Morgan looks lazy today. Maybe it's unfair to judge him this way, but if you look at the way he lumbers back to his feet fromt he turf you'll see what I mean. It's sad, cause it's mental.

Andre Davis and Northcutt were seriously MIA until Davis caught a huge bomb late in the game. It's too bad he stumbled cause he would have outran everyone for a TD.

Robert Griffith was solid too. Something in the water?

It's a great win, but it's probably not yet indicative of what kind of team we have this year -- we have a solid defense, a crafty QB, some decent talent. But we didn't see anything where we really put it all together and executed. We'll see.

Enjoy the week.