Self-inflicted frustration Tony Grossi, The Cleveland Plain Dealer , published 13 September 2010 As far as meltdowns go, there have been worse ones than what the Browns experienced here in the Giant Sauna Bowl Sunday. But none come to mind with so much on the line in the first game of a season. A win over beatable Tampa Bay builds confidence in the team and its suffering fans that maybe this year will be different. Instead, the Browns begin their season 0-1 for the 11th time in 12 years. They lost to Tampa Bay, 17-14, after dominating the first half. Two Jake Delhomme interceptions and a Peyton Hillis fumble made thankful winners out of the Bucs, who were worse than the Browns last year. Delhomme's first interception was returned to the Browns' 3 by cornerback Ronde Barber, setting up a touchdown with 18 seconds to go in the first half. Hillis' fumble occurred on the first possession of the second half at the Tampa 15 when a touchdown would have been a foot to the throat of the young Bucs. After the fumble, the Browns gained only two more first downs the rest of the game and had only one more play over 10 yards. The flashback to last season's offensive doldrums made the defense's one mistake stand up as the winning play -- a 33-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Josh Freeman over rookie cornerback Joe Haden when an all-out blitz failed. Haden also was called for illegal contact on the play. "The feeling in this locker room is we gave that game away," said linebacker Scott Fujita. "We've got to get to the point where we're playing to win the game and not making mistakes that cost us," said coach Eric Mangini. After an impressive preseason, Delhomme's first real game in a Browns uniform reawakened the turnover demons that chased him out of Carolina. His first one was a forced throw to tight end Benjamin Watson when Delhomme was being taken down on an apparent sack. Delhomme tried to make a play when he saw Watson open for a fleeting second, but Watson appeared to break the other way after the ball was released. The second interception came after Tampa forged ahead for the first time in the fourth quarter. Delhomme had Mohamed Massaquoi open behind cornerback E.J. Biggers, but he underthrew it and Biggers intercepted. The Bucs gave the ball back when Browns rookie safety T.J. Ward knocked a fumble loose from running back Earnest Graham and Eric Barton recovered. But the last four Browns' possessions began at their 7-, 6-, 3- and 11-yard lines and the offense was out of gas to traverse the field. After the second interception, Delhomme threw only one more time to a wideout. The Browns had been relatively creative early in building a 202-113 edge in total yards during the first half. They ran the ball for a 7.9-yard average and added a Josh Cribbs pass of nine yards to Seneca Wallace out of the gimmick package. Hillis scored on a 10-yard run sprung by key blocks by center Alex Mack and guard Eric Steinbach, both of whom pulled on the play. But Delhomme got worse as the game wore on. He was 9-of-19 in the second half and finished with a passer rating of 59.2 -- all too familiar for the quarterback-challenged franchise. "I'm more disappointed than anybody," said Delhomme. Said Mangini, "I thought [Delhomme] was effective throughout a lot of the game. I think we could have helped him more in terms of making plays offensively. There were certain plays there I thought we should have been able to get open. I have full confidence in him. I thought he ran the offense well." Delhomme's best play was a 41-yard throw to Massaquoi for the game's first touchdown when Massaquoi got behind the famed "Tampa Two" deep coverage. Later, Massaquoi beat the coverage again, but Delhomme's pass fell to the middle of the field while Massaquoi turned to the left corner. It wasn't a major surprise that the Browns' defense, the unit that looked so vulnerable in preseason, held up its end of the bargain. As speculated by some, Mangini and coordinator Rob Ryan unveiled an array of defensive looks that baffled and rattled Freeman. The Browns never fielded more than three defensive linemen on passing downs and often lined up only one -- Shaun Rogers -- in between rush linebackers Matt Roth, Marcus Benard and Fujita. Benard had 1.5 of the team's three sacks. The run defense, stouter with Ahytba Rubin manning the nose most of the time, contained feature back Carnell (Cadillac) Williams, who rushed 22 times for 75 yards. Tampa Bay technically went over 100 yards as a team because Freeman ripped off a 33-yard gain on a scramble. The Browns were not hurt by ex-teammate Kellen Winslow II, who had only four catches for 32 yards. Winslow appeared frustrated at times and predictably contributed a holding penalty that negated a 16-yard Tampa run. Rookie safety T.J. Ward had a good NFL debut with 10 tackles, a forced fumble and a forced interception when he knocked Freeman on a blitz. Unfortunately, Ward wasn't the main blitzer on Freeman's TD throw to Micheal Spurlock over Haden. They chose to send Abram Elam instead and he didn't come close to Freeman. But the bottom line was the Browns lost a game they had to win, against a second-year quarterback with a broken thumb. They return home to play Kansas City Sunday before the schedule gets infinitely tougher. "Our fans won't tolerate us beating ourselves, like we just did," Cribbs said. "We just played Browns vs. Browns, and the Browns lost."