Fourteen years ago today, the Browns last participated in the playoffs.

They couldn’t stanch a Steeler comeback. The season ended there, near the Confluence, as it did in their previous post-season appearance eight years earlier as the original Browns.

This current playoff drought is approaching double the length of that 1994-2002 dry spell that included The Move. That had been the franchise’s longest, tied with the 1972-1980 period bracketing Pittsburgh’s first era of championship teams.

In fact, if the Browns don’t win eight to ten more games next year, this drought will definitely be as long as both of those previous painful periods combined.

This New Years Day was the sixth time since that 36-33 thriller this day in ’03 that the Browns ended their season with a loss to the Steelers. That’s not the kind of holiday tradition to bequeath Browns fans.

Until the Haslams’ hires can boost the Browns back into viable rivals to the Steelers particularly, they’ll continue to be like the tone of their year-end letter to fans. Sorry.