With the bye week ahead of us, it will be nice to enjoy the Browns' victory over the New Orleans Saints for the next two weeks. I thought that other Week 7 NFL oddities, such as the Raiders putting up 59 points, the ending to the Steelers-Dolphins game, or the unusual shootout between the Bills and the Ravens, would overshadow Cleveland's upset victory over Drew Brees and company. I was wrong; Cleveland is getting quite a bit of recognition. Let's take a look, starting with Sports Illustrated's Peter King:
Here is Yahoo Sports' Michael Silver, who detailed Scott Fujita's return to New Orleans:
• Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita knew his return to New Orleans would be emotional, so upon his arrival in the Big Easy Saturday he made a point of taking teammate Eric Barton on a power tour of his old ‘hood in the city’s Warehouse District. They paid quick visits to his favorite sushi spot, Rock-N-Sake, and his favorite watering hole, Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar and Restaurant, along with the fashionable condo that Fujita and his wife, Jaclyn, still own. "That actually kind of helped," he said Sunday night. "I was able to experience the emotion then, so when I got to the game it was more about football."
Fujita then proceeded to play some very good football against his former team – "He balled out and was all over the ball," teammate Alex Mack said – registering an interception and sack of buddy Drew Brees while resisting the compulsion to talk trash. Most important, the Browns stunned the defending Super Bowl champs 30-17 to improve to 2-5. "It’s been hard for us to finish games," an exhausted Fujita said upon his return to Cleveland late Sunday night. "This time we closed it out. Hopefully we can start to get something rolling."
Next up is Sports Illustrated's Don Banks in his weekly Snap Judgments column:
John Clayton briefly mentions Cleveland throughout his column, but its basically the same stuff listed above. It'll be interesting to see if Cleveland shoots up on the power rankings charts on Tuesday.