Misery

The biggest tragedy of Jim Caple's NFL misery index (in which the Browns are deemed the team that has caused its fans the most misery in the past ... oh, let's say 40-odd years) is the fact that I am not offended by the designation. I'm almost relieved somebody is finally shedding some light on our suffering in Cleveland.
The Browns were football's version of the Yankees from 1946 to 1965, winning four AAFC titles, four NFL titles, and another five appearances in the NFL title game.
Since then, they have been some grotesque mutant combination of the Cubs and Red Sox (pre-2004).
The Browns have tormented their fans, going 0-5 in games that could have sent them to the Super Bowl. The losses in the 1968 and 1969 NFL title games were more or less an older team at the end of the road. The three losses to the Broncos in the '80s AFC championships don't get off as easily, not when I have to flick on "ESPN Classic" and every other night see some special commemorating "The Drive" and "The Fumble."
We musn't forget Red Right 88, which prevented the Browns from travelling to San Diego for the 1980 AFC championship.
Their two most recent playoff berths, 1994 and 2002, resulted in losses to the hated Steelers, who completed three-game season sweeps in both cases.
When the Browns haven't caused postseason tears, they have forced their fans to endure long stretches of lousy football. The Browns spent most of the '70s not being worth a damn, went in the tank in the early '80s before the arrival of Bernie Kosar and since 1990 have amassed a 2-14 record once (1999), a 3-13 record twice (1990, 2000), a 4-12 record once (2004), a 5-11 record twice (1995, 2003) and a 6-10 record twice (1991, 2005).
When they haven't been doing either of the above, the Browns have forced Clevelanders to do without football, period. And that is the trump card over any other football fan base that wants to whine about how hard they have had it.
Due in part to Art Modell's stifling debt, in part to foot-dragging from Cleveland's government on the subject of building a new football stadium, and in part to Baltimore's desperation to regain the NFL, Modell pulled his team out of Cleveland in 1995, resurfacing as the Baltimore Ravens in 1996.
From 1996 to 1998, we had no football team. When we finally got a new team, it was an expansion version hastily flung together in a little under a year by people who didn't exactly qualify as personnel gurus.
Since then, little has gone right. The Browns have been through three coaches in seven years, as well as three directors of their football operations wing. It was almost four, as current GM Phil Savage was allegedly almost forced out of his job by now ex-president John Collins at the end of last month.
Front office power struggles generally don't promote a winning environment.
Draft picks misfired. The owner, Al Lerner, died in 2002, paving the way for his son Randy to take over. The new stadium was flung up on the site of the old one with far fewer creature comforts than some of its contemporary structures.
And while all this chaos was happening in Cleveland, Art Modell got to hoist a Super Bowl trophy in January 2001 for the Ravens.
From a purely football standpoint, Modell had been justified in moving the team. Cleveland lost their team, and the war against Modell. The Ravens became a trophy-toting league power while the Browns were an unstable laughing stock.
The worst part is, Browns fans care about their team like few fan bases do. In other cities, football might be a weekend diversion. In Cleveland, fans paint their cars brown and orange. Every success and failure is lived and died with. And like a loyal family member of some ne'er-do-well who can't seem to straighten his life out, the fans stay devoted and keep coming back for more abuse.
The Browns are a team only a mother could love. In this case, pigskin might be thicker than water.