A lot of fans panicked after the Week 1 loss to Pittsburgh. But that game felt like a fluke to me (as a card-carrying citizen of Measured Response Nation). Likewise, the Week 2 win definitely felt like a fluke (a happy one)—I don't care what asinine made-up country you come from. This game, though, felt a little closer to what I expected from the 2007 Browns.

For example: the offense was good at times but bad overall. It had its share of nice plays, but suffered from too many stalled drives and was hamstrung by some bad decisions from its quarterback. It may not have been what I wanted to see, but it was basically what I expected to see.

(That said, the Browns offense still looks plenty better than it did in 2006. Clearly, they haven't yet graduated to the "next level", whatever that is, but it's evident that most of the pieces are in place.)

The special teams continue to play up to their lofty standards, and once again kept the Browns in a game they probably had no business being in (final play notwithstanding). Nothing we haven't seen before...

The defense, on the other hand, continues to play poorly, and this time I am legitimately concerned, because the Raiders, unlike the Browns' first two opponents, have a bad offense. We saw a couple of things work well—Leigh Bodden allowed only one completion on six tries, and the pass rush applied some pressure, but the end results were once again pretty terrible. 26 points is a lot to give up to the Raiders, especially when you consider that the Browns lucked out by recovering a few fumbles—essentially, Oakland played well enough to score more than 26 points.

There's still plenty of time for things to get sorted out, but for now, the performance of the defense—especially the pass defense—especially the secondary—especially on deep passes—is the Browns' most pressing concern.

Play of the Week

Alex says: Before I get to my selection, allow me a few words. Now that's what I call a Browns game! This week, the team really returned to form with another trademark Browns Game. We've discussed the concept before, but it seems the Browns are cursed to forever be playing games in which they're badly outplayed and clearly don't deserve to win, yet by some incredible stroke of luck find themselves in the thick of it in the fourth quarter, such that, if only they could come through with a touchdown or field goal or what have you, they'd steal a victory. However, they so rarely come through in this situation, and that's what we saw this week. A blocked field goal—a very interesting variation on the normal Browns Game theme. Well done, boys. Anyway, my choice for Play of the Week came early, in the first quarter when Derek Anderson lofted a pass over Braylon Edwards shoulder to convert a 3rd-19. Braylon juggled, then caught the ball while tumbling out-of-bounds. It was all very nice.

Corey says: Even though the defense played badly, I'll go with Kamerion Wimbley's first sack (the one where he lunged at Josh McCown from about three yards away). My other choices were Braylon's two long gains (the one Alex chose, plus the touchdown), and some of the long pass plays from the one-minute drill at the end of the game. But there's just something refreshing about seeing Wimbley execute his trademark pounce like that. It's a thing of beauty.

Player of the Week

Alex says: While the stagnation of the offense may lead to less press for the revamped offensive line, it wasn't for lack of great pass protection. Derek Anderson was technically sacked once, but that came on Gerard Warren's forced fumble on which Warren could only get a hand in and Anderson wasn't even knocked down. The official play-by-play for the game doesn't record Anderson being knocked down once, although I know from replays he was roughed up at least once. On this evidence, I choose the left side of the line, specifically Eric Steinbach, as the Player of the Week. I went looking into the running game to help determine which linemen played particularly well. The Browns ran seven times off left end or left tackle for 40 yards, with a median carry of 5.7 yards. Off either guard or up the middle, the Browns had had eight carries for 36 yards, a median of 4.5. The Browns chose to run to the right only twice for a grand total of zero yards. I read this distribution as telling us the left side of the line (Steinbach and Joe Thomas) is so superior to the right, that Rob Chudzinksi figures it's better to always play to his strength.

Corey says: The Player of the Week is Josh Cribbs. I try to give credit for a long kickoff return to the entire unit and not just the return man, but still, Cribbs is clearly one of the better (if not the best) kickoff returners in the league at this moment in time. Not only that, he has become quite the gunner on both the kickoff and punt teams, as evidenced by his smothering tackle of returner Chris Carr at the Raiders' 7-yard line following a Browns punt. But not only that! Cribbs lined up at QB for one play, and ended up running the ball for a 7-yard gain. I, like many fans, love to see this kind of play, especially because Cribbs was a college QB known for Kordell Stewart-style versatility. The most interesting part about this play, however, was the fact that Derek Anderson lined up wide on the left, dropping back to receive a possible lateral as soon as the ball was snapped (for some kind of bizarro-halfback option, I would guess). Anyway, it was a cool play, even though Cribbs only picked up 7 yards...

But not only that! Two weeks ago, Fox Sports Ohio began airing my new favorite reality show, Josh's Cribbs. If you haven't watched it yet, I strongly recommend you do so (it re-airs a couple times a week). So far, there have been two episodes—I can only speculate as to how many there will be in total—and it appears the entire premise of the show is to watch Josh Cribbs go about his daily life. It's brilliant. In episode 1, Josh tours us around his home, and goes shopping at Dick's Sporting Goods. In episode 2, Josh plays in a charity golf tournament, and visits a gun-firing range with teammate Ethan Kelley and—wait for it—former teammate Babatunde Oshinowo! Seriously, it's the greatest show on television right now. (I just can't wait for the spin-offs to ensue... Brodney's Pool, anyone?)

Quote of the Week

Alex says:

"We tried to muster something up in the second half but then we ended up letting them block the kick at the end to ensure the loss." —Romeo Crennel

What insightful commentary! He really elucidated a facet of the game only someone on the sidelines would see. Wow! Honestly, this kind of nothing-talk illustrates a lot of Browns fans' frustrations with Crennel. He's cryptic in interviews and not terribly emotional on the sideline. In fact, on the sideline, he'll usually stand by himself and stoically watch the game. It sure looks like he's dead weight. But I try to reserve judgment, at least from the in- and post-game behavior of Crennel, since seriously, how much of a difference could it make?

Corey says:

"The TD was set up perfectly. There was great blocking. I got out around the edge, and I saw Steve Heiden's great block in my peripheral vision. I saw the ref right behind him, and I was thinking to myself, 'Ref, do not throw no flag.' It was a great block by Heiden. I gave them a head fake inside, and it was just over from that point." —Josh Cribbs

Yes. This, in contrast to Alex's Quote of the Week above, is what I want to hear about in the postgame interview. I want to know who set up what, and what he was thinking. I want to know about strategy, what was planned, what wasn't, and why. I don't want to hear, for example, Joe Jurevicius' answer to the question "How devastating was this loss?" (If you guessed "Very"—you're right!!!!)

Ryan Pontbriand Honorary Special Teams Moment of the Week

Alex says: A no-brainer, as Josh "MTV" Cribbs found himself in the endzone at the end of a kickoff return once again. The return team did a tremendous job blocking—no Raider was within, I'd say, six feet of Cribbs, until the kicker. Speaking of which, Cribbs's juking two-step to elude Sebastian Janikowski was most excellent. Why kickers even try to bring down Cribbs in the open field like this, we'll never know.

Corey says: Yeah, I'm not sure there's much else I can say about this beautiful, beautiful play. I think the Browns kickoff return team, even for all the accolades it receives, has been slightly underrated, because they tend to have a lot of returns in the 50-to-80-yard range, which don't end in touchdowns. Obviously, an objective analysis like the one at Football Outsiders will credit these returns properly, but even Football Outsiders, I suspect, is slightly underrating the Browns' kickoff return team, for another reason: they have mounted countless long returns that have been nullified due to penalties. Sure, some of those returns may only have been long because of the penalties, but at least a handful of them were mounted independently of the penalties that canceled them out. This, to me, is evidence of superior kickoff-return-mounting ability, whether it shows up in the stat book or not.

Volney "Skeets" Quinlan Memorial Obscure Brown of the Week

Alex says: An old Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times favorite, "Big Ol'" Simon Fraser had a nice game, stopping LaMont Jordan for one yard on a 1st-and-10 in the second quarter and recovering Jordan's muffed handoff later in the same quarter. While forcing fumbles is a skill, as Football Outsiders has shown, recovering them isn't and the Browns really benefited from two lucky bounces of the ball. Sean Jones did a nice job to strip Mike Williams but the other was dumb luck. These two plays could end up really warping our evaluation of both the offense and defense. If the Raiders hadn't fumbled, it's likely they would've gone on to score at least once, since they scored in six of their nine drives that didn't end a half or result in a turnover. Both fumbles also gave the Browns good field position and led to 10 points. If the Raiders added another score and the Browns didn't get all 10 of those points (maybe just 3?), the game wouldn't have ended so close and it'd have been easier to see that the Browns were outplayed.

Corey says: So, who's the current Browns player you're least likely to have heard of? I'll wager it's linebacker Kristofor "Kris" Griffin, #53, who is now in his third year as a pro, after stints in Kansas City and Europe. Kris is quite possibly the best NFL player to have graduated from his alma mater, Indiana of Pennsylvania. And since, for all intents and purposes, Ohio is the Indiana of Pennsylvania (just as Maryland is the Kentucky of Pennsylvania, or New Jersey is the Pennsylvania of Pennsylvania), then Kris Griffin practically went to Ohio State! So when I say he's quite possibly the best player in the NFL to have graduated from his particular alma mater, that's quite a compliment!

Fashion Item of the Week

Alex says: The striped socks remain! Let us rejoice. With that out of the way, I don't really have much else, besides that I fully respect Raiders Defensive Coordinator Rob Ryan for rocking the nuclear mullet.

Corey says: The return of the striped socks is indeed a great relief to humankind. The Browns wore them in Week 1 of the 2007 preseason, but reverted to their all-brown monstrosities for the other three preseason games. Then, in the regular season, they wore the brown jerseys in both Weeks 1 and 2, leaving us all in suspense about which socks would appear when they finally did bust out the white unis. This is just a guess, but I'm thinking that the Browns plan to wear both sock varieties in a rotation. Which is horrible, but still better than when they abandoned the stripes altogether a few years back. Anyway, I think several Mistake by the Lake readers would call for my head if I let this Fashion of the Week go by without crediting Scott Player for his distinctive one-bar helmet and fu manchu 'stache. I just don't want anyone out there to think I'm a Player hater (I know, boooo...). I still want the D-Zast-er to get healthy as fast as possible, though!

Idiot of the Week

Alex says: I choose Lane Kiffin for calling a timeout on the one that Phil Dawson actually made. I wonder: if Kiffin had called a timeout just as Phil Dawson was booting a field goal which sailed wide, only to watch Phil connect on the one that actually did count, would people be lambasting the Raiders coach for making the terrible decision to try to ice the kicker? Because that would be hilarious.

Corey says: Can it be that Bill Macatee and Steve Beuerlein have replaced Ian Eagle and Solomon Wilcots as Official CBS Lackeys Sentenced to Follow the Cleveland Browns to the Depths of Hell? If so, congratulations, Ian and Sol—can I call you Sol?—on your promotion! You'll be slightly missed, especially since Steve Beuerlein is once again the Idiot of the Week, this time for falling over himself in praise of the Browns' play call (a run up the middle for 13 yards) on 3rd-and-40 at the end of the game's first drive. His reasoning was that the worst thing you can do on 3rd-and-40 is throw an interception, even though an interception in that situation is not much different than a punt, which is what you're guaranteed to do (punt, I mean) if you opt to run up the middle like that. I'm just sayin'.

Number of the Week

Alex says: 47%, or the Raiders' conversion efficiency on third and fourth downs. The Browns' defensive struggles to end drives are exacerbated by some of the crazy conversions they allowed. Like 27 yards on a 3rd-and-23. Or a 41-yard touchdown bomb on 3rd-and-1. I don't believe defense on third downs is much different than on first or second. In fact, having your performance on third down way out of whack with other plays is an indicator for strong regression to the mean. So, if the Browns were playing well on first and second down and giving up big yardage on third, we could rest semi-well-assured that things would work themselves out and the other team would eventually be stopped in their tracks. But I'm not so sure the Browns have been defending well on first and second down either. Their pass coverage has been erratic at best this year. Leigh Bodden played well this week, but Eric Wright and the safeties have seemingly been victimized over and over. Could it be they really miss Brian Russell this much? Or is something else afoot?

Corey says: Thanks to last week's offensive extravaganza, Derek Anderson entered Week 3 on pace to shatter the New Browns franchise record for passing DPAR (his raw PAR, unadjusted though it may have been, was 15.0, which is higher than any DPAR ever put up by a New Browns quarterback over a full season). Of course, that number is going to come down quite a bit, thanks to—among other things—Anderson's poor performance against Oakland. Stop me if this sounds familiar. In 2006, Anderson entered Week 16 on pace to break the franchise record for passing DPAR despite only having played in a couple of games. Then, he laid an egg of unimaginable proportions against Tampa Bay, in which he posted the worst single-game DPAR in New Browns history (-17.6). I'm not bringing this up for any particular reason, other than I thought the potential parallel was interesting.

Pythagorean Moral Standings

As you might expect, the Browns cruised to a whopper of a moral victory this week, thanks to—what else—the striped socks. The Bengals and Ravens each suffered the proverbial moral shutout, while the Steelers morally pasted the 49ers. In case you're wondering, the Browns now boast a moral record of 3-0, though their Pythagorean moral record, as you can see below, pegs them as just a .767 team, morally (which still leads the NFL—don't you worry!).

            PMW   PML   pct
Cleveland   2.3   0.7  .767
Pittsburgh  1.6   1.4  .533
Cincinnati  1.1   1.9  .367
Baltimore   0.0   3.0  .000

Next week: The Browns run circles around the stupid, pathetic, idiotic, conniving, shallow, sinister, hapless, ugly, smelly, back-stabbing, people-stabbing, amoral, obese, malnourished, weak-minded, unoriginal, flatulent, lying, cheating, stealing, moronic, uncoordinated... what was I talking about again? Well, whatever—I'll see you at the stadium, Dawg denizens, and we'll "see" you (but not literally) on another exhilarating "Born and Raised on the Cleveland Browns"!