Digging deeper into the Browns' Struggles on Sunday

After the Browns' abysmal 19-14 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday, fans of the Orange and Brown are once again on suicide watch.

To make matters worse, even certain individuals covering the team seem to have given up all hope just one week into the season.

Don't get us wrong. Sunday's game was not pretty by any means, and if the team continues to make the mental mistakes (wasted timeouts and holding penalties) and physical mistakes (running the wrong routes and dropping catchable passes) that we saw Sunday, then this season will be no better than those that have preceded it for the last seven years. However, we aren't seeing things in such a negative light. Here are some of our observations.

- The play-calling wasn't as bad as people think. When things go awry for a team offensively, the first individual fans look to is the offensive coordinator. Following Sunday's loss, fans and media alike have been calling out Browns OC Maurice Carthon for what has been dubbed "unimaginative play-calling."

Specific examples of Carthon's "failures" in calling the plays are the two 3rd-and-1 running plays that went to Lawrence Vickers, as well as Reuben Droughns finishing the game with only 11 carries.

Yet when we look deeper at Carthon's decisions, we can understand his thinking. Going into the game, the Browns anticipated New Orleans packing their defense up front in order to stop Droughns. Seeing as how Droughns was the one offensive weapon the Browns had to offer last season, the Saints entered Sunday's contest trying to stop him.

As a result, we believe Carthon and the Browns went into Sunday's contest wanting to surprise the New Orleans defense. In anticipating the Saints packing the box, Carthon called for the play-action pass to Braylon Edwards on the first play from scrimmage.

While people clamored for Droughns to get more touches after-the-fact, the bottom line is that if Kevin Schaffer isn't flagged for holding, Carthon is being praised for his guts and creativity in calling for the bomb to Edwards on the first play from scrimmage.

Instead, he is being inundated with criticism.

With the third down plays, we once again believe Carthon was going for the element of surprise. The Browns seldom utilized Vickers in the preseason, and it is fair to presume that New Orleans had done a great deal of game-planning defensively for short yardage situations with Droughns in the Browns backfield.

What we can derive from the play-calling is this: Carthon actually illustrated a good deal of ingenuity during Sunday's game. What was lacking was the execution.

With that being said, the Browns need to find a happy medium between the element of surprise and simply out-executing the other team. If they plan on being a tough, hard-nosed team that runs the football then they need to take it to the opposition regardless of the situation and what the defense may expect.

- The Browns showed an ability to make big plays. Between the 70-yard bomb to Edwards on the first play (which was called back due to Schaffer's holding penalty), a series of plays to Kellen Winslow, the fourth down conversion to Joe Jurevicious (also called back due to penalty) and many plays improvised by Charlie Frye, we're confident that the Browns have more playmaking ability on offense than has been seen in Cleveland in a while. If they can simply cut back the penalties and improve the pass protection, things should get much better in a hurry.

- The offensive line was horrendous. Yet, after looking at game tape we can find a couple reasons why. First off, the line hasn't played together as a unit at all with the addition of Hank Fraley. As a result, it appeared to us that there were some communication breakdowns where lineman were not missing blocks, but simply blocking the wrong players. With some more time together in practice the kinks in the communication department should be worked out.

- The Browns aren't the only ones. While Browns fans all over are furious after the teams' lackluster performance on Sunday, we've taken notice of what took place all across the National Football League on it's first weekend. What did we see? A great deal of bad football. With the exception of the Colts-Giants game on Sunday evening, most games displayed a lack of execution and all-around poor football. The Browns looked no worse than the Panthers, Buccaneers, Redskins or Broncos - and those teams made the playoffs last season.

There is still a great deal of work to be done, but remember - things are never quite as good or quite as bad as they seem.