The Browns are indeed a joke. They are, at the moment, the worst organization in American sports.

Cleveland doesn’t deserve that. This coming year will mark 50 since Cleveland’s last championship in any sport. The Browns have provided more pain than any of the other teams. I remember the awfulness of the Browns final home game in 1995 — the last game in Cleveland before the Browns moved to Baltimore. There was so much anger, so much disgust, so little hope.

And then, in 1996, ’97 and ’98 there was no football in Cleveland. When I would come back in the winters, there was a bleakness that overwhelmed everything. The wind. The snow. The slush. The grayness. The potholes. All of it seemed tolerable as long as the Browns played on Sundays. With them gone, well, it was rough.

But you know what? With these Browns — with this owner, with this braintrust, with the never ending parade of quarterbacks, with the perpetual hiring and firing of coaches — I have to say: Those three years without the Browns almost seem charming in memory.

— Joe Posnanski, Cleveland native and one of America’s best sportswriters