The Cleveland Browns' record should be no surprise.

At 3-6, they are right on the same pace they've been since they returned to the field in 1999. The Browns' overall record in that time: 53-100, a win-loss percentage of .346. At 3-6 this season, the Browns are .333.

Folks say there are lies, damn lies and statistics, but those win-loss statistics accurately reflect the state of the Browns since they came back. This team consistently has lost just about twice as often as it has won.

It has done it with a coach/GM system, with a coach-as-king system, and with another coach working in tandem with another GM.

It has done it with a bottle game, a helmet game, a runaway train, a Christmas Eve massacre and nonstop losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It has done it with more high draft picks than any team could want and with different quarterbacks, philosophies and coaching staffs.

If the noisiest fans have their way, another coaching change is coming.

But changing coaches without knowing who is coming next is folly. The Browns have been down that road, yet only the arrogance about the aura that surrounds the Browns could prompt everyone to assume that Bill Cowher would jump, leap, run, scamper and happily skip to Cleveland to coach a team that has not won consistently in two decades.

Please.

A new coach will not automatically get the Browns' house in order, because the results on the field show the team's house is not in order.

The problem is that it's nearly impossible to explain the problem. It's easy to illustrate it, but hard to explain.

The case could be made that the group that did the best job with the Browns was the one run by Dwight Clark, Lal Heneghan, Joe Collins, Keith Kidd and Phil Neri and coached by Chris Palmer back in the early days of expansion.

Think about it. As bad as those first two years were — the second, I believe, was the time of the infamous ''runaway train'' — the Browns competed for the playoffs in their third year and made it in the fourth.

That progression matched Palmer's mantra from the day he was hired: We'll have to deal with what happens the first two years, we'll compete in the third and the fourth is when we'll make the playoffs.

Of course, because the Browns got impatient, Butch Davis was in charge by the third year, and by the fourth year, he had run out most of the front office present when he was hired.

After he made the playoffs, Davis ran off key veteran players who were good for that team, and scapegoated a defensive coordinator for calls in a playoff loss made by Davis.

When Davis joined the Browns, he hired an impressive veteran coaching staff that included guys like Terry Robiskie, Bruce Arians and Foge Fazio. But Davis eventually fired Arians and Fazio, and Robiskie is now coaching with the Atlanta Falcons.

Palmer's first staff included Ken Whisenhunt and Tony Sparano. Both are successful head coaches now, and Sparano is overseeing a Miami Dolphins turnaround that has them going from a one-win season to a winning record.

The Browns?

They go from a 10-win season to running their starting quarterback out of town (again) to losing twice as many as they win.

Davis' teams never recovered from his post-playoff purge.

They won five and four games his last two seasons, and the last one was a mess of a mess, with Davis spending more time criticizing the decisions in 1999 and 2000 than explaining his.

The most bizarre moment in that time came when Davis called Terry Pluto and me into his office on Christmas Eve for a 21/2-hour defense of his approach. On Christmas Eve.

In part of that discussion, Davis lambasted Clark and Palmer for not drafting impact players their first two years. The Browns had none, he said.

''OK, Butch. You've had three drafts. Why haven't you found one?'' Pluto asked.

Davis' face went blank, as if that thought had never occurred to him.

He then launched into a passionate defense of Gerard Warren, one of the original Browns frauds who epitomized the Davis era.

Davis overruled his coaches to take him over Richard Seymour. Warren was loud and crude, and he didn't produce.

Davis' departure led to the hiring of the present Phil Savage-Romeo Crennel regime. It started with the drafting of Charlie Frye, a guy Savage deemed the team's future after his first preseason.

The Browns eventually became the only team in NFL history to trade its starting quarterback two days after the season opener.

That should not have been surprising. This team's 10-year history also included releasing its leading receiver (Kevin Johnson) in midseason, benching a quarterback (Trent Dilfer) after signing him to a four-year deal in the spring and cutting its leading rusher (Reuben Droughns) from the previous two seasons.

Dare we forget when the Browns were going to jettison Savage after one season?

Not that any of these players were superstars, just that success and contract commitment didn't lead to permanence.

Frye's trade led to the starting of Derek Anderson, which led to 10 wins and a near-playoff appearance, even though the Browns had drafted Brady Quinn. Which led to the re-signing of Anderson.

He lasted eight games.

This organization has been brutal with its quarterbacks. Ty Detmer got one game to hold the fort and let Tim Couch learn.

Couch was sent in before his time, then developed arm problems.

Kelly Holcomb won the job in preseason, then was vilified in public for doing so. There are some who think an environment was created that made it impossible for Holcomb to succeed. Late in that season, Davis told Couch he was his quarterback for the next few years.

Then he signed Jeff Garcia — after sending Robiskie, then the offensive coordinator, out of town when Garcia visited.

During Garcia's tenure, Davis drafted Luke McCown and was convinced Garcia would be a one-year starter and that McCown would take over.

That led to Savage bringing in Dilfer and giving him a contract extension. He drafted Frye, and questions about when Frye would replace Dilfer started before the first minicamp.

Eventually Frye was traded, and Anderson started.

Folks were ready to send Anderson to the gallows after two games this season.

Now it's Quinn, who best watch his back. In this town, this environment, a quarterback gets little time to succeed. Folks will turn on him quickly if he doesn't, though Quinn's golden-dome image might buy him a little more time.

If Quinn is not the answer, who knows what is?

Since 1999, the Browns have had 11 starting quarterbacks: Detmer, Couch, Doug Pederson, Spergon Wynn, Holcomb, Garcia, McCown, Dilfer, Frye, Anderson and Quinn.

The best starting record among them? Anderson at 13-13.

Now Crennel is coaching with an offensive coordinator he didn't hire and a rookie defensive coordinator hired to replace the guy who was supposedly signed to a contract extension to be Crennel's successor.

Crennel might take the fall for a bad season, and he should be held accountable if the record does not improve. But he and Savage have been so joined at the hip, it's hard to eliminate Savage from responsibility.

His first draft leaves the Browns with Braylon Edwards and Brodney Pool.

His second has Kamerion Wimbley, D'Qwell Jackson, Jerome Harrison and Lawrence Vickers (perhaps his best selection).

His third has Joe Thomas, Quinn, Eric Wright and Brandon McDonald.

His rookie class is too young to judge.

He also has been active in free agency and trades. The Browns' free-agent and new contract spending would make Henry Paulson blush.

Some have been good moves — Jamal Lewis, Shaun Rogers, Eric Steinbach — and some haven't — Donte' Stallworth. Some have produced pure bad luck: Gary Baxter, LeCharles Bentley, Joe Jurevicius. And, of course, the signing of Bentley led to the trade of Jeff Faine, who then made the Pro Bowl with the New Orleans Saints.

Teams have to look to improve, but the problem with bringing in veteran free agents continually is that it constantly changes the nature of the team.

The best teams in the league use free agency to fill holes, not as foundations. The best teams use drafted talent as their foundation and fill in, i.e. the New England Patriots and the Steelers.

The Tennessee Titans are 9-0; name the last major-money free agent they signed.

To compound the problem, the free agents the Browns bring in are brought in as leaders. That can work, but often doesn't because the free agents don't have the tenure with the team to garner immediate respect.

A leader has to be one of the better players on the team. Why else would anyone listen if he's not producing?

And it helps if he has been around for a while.

The greatest leader in professional sports plays in Cleveland — for the Cavaliers. It helps that LeBron James is the game's best player, but watch how he approaches every game, every season, and it's easy to see why he's a leader.

He works at it, he helps his teammates, he makes people better and he demands respect.

Guys want to play with him.

The Browns' younger players aren't there yet or don't have the personality to lead. The Browns also have led the league, it seems, in drafted players who arrived with a sense of entitlement based on where they were drafted and/or the money they were paid.

Guys like Warren and Edwards, who has to be retained because of his enormous talent, and Kellen Winslow and even Couch, who looked on the quarterback position as his because of where he was drafted as opposed to the fact he earned it.

Since 1999, the Browns have drafted the first, first, third, 16th, 21st, sixth, third, 13th and third overall players in the draft. They've gotten two Pro Bowl appearances from those slots.

Through it all, one thing the Browns have lacked is a dominant, impact defensive player, the kind of guy who forces an offense to take notice and game plan.

He hasn't been on the roster. Yes, Rogers is having that kind of season, but it has not been good enough to win, and he needs to keep doing it beyond this season.

What does all this mean?

In one sense, all the stories make sense. Teams that lose twice as often as they win over a decade aren't going to produce many warm and fuzzy ''aren't we together in this'' stories.

Yes, dredging up old tales could be viewed as cheap shots when people are working hard to win. The Browns employ people who work hard, who care, who try.

But it hasn't translated to the field.

Players rave about the way they are treated, but the bottom line with the Browns since 1999 has been tumult. If it's not a motorcycle accident, it's a guy getting arrested in Pittsburgh at a party. If it's not a staph infection, it's a key free-agent signing getting hurt on the first day of training camp. If it's not a quarterback change, it's a quarterback controversy.

There have been too many loudmouths and too few professionals.

There's too much complaining about the past. The past is long over.

There are too many ridiculous perks like valet parking at games — Why is it so tough for players to park their own cars in a lot right across the street from the stadium entrance? — and too few demands of players as professionals and men.

There's too much money going out to guys without enough accountability for maturity and character. Talent wins, but talent without character is misplaced.

There's too much change, too much turnover. If Quinn is the Browns' guy, they should be committed to him for the long term — at least through the end of the 2010 season, so they can ride out his highs and lows and let him grow.

Players should not be jettisoned when they follow a good year with a poor one. It happens. If the player showed something one year that allowed the team to believe in him, it's not gone the next because of this, that or the other thing.

A lot of thought should go into whether the Browns really want a change in coaches. Because a change in coaches would lead to a change in GMs. Does anyone really think Bill Cowher would leave the gravy train of TV to join the Browns without control of personnel?

If Cowher comes, it's a total change. He has the leverage and pedigree to dictate terms.

If Savage stays, that limits the pool to a college coach or an assistant coach from another NFL team. It can work. See the Falcons, Ravens and Dolphins this season.

There's also the possibility of hiring a coach who is fired or let go after the season. Savage also could pull a rabbit out of his hat and steal Jim Tressel from Ohio State.

The feelings about Savage around the league are split. Almost everyone sees him as a good personnel man, but not everyone wants to work with him as a GM. Coaches like some say in personnel decisions, and they didn't like the way Crennel was not guiding the hiring of offensive assistants two offseasons ago.

It's impossible to explain the Browns, the disappointments, the letdowns, the record.

Because they have become the living example of the NFL's chicken-or-egg question: Do the Browns lose because they are dysfunctional, or are they dysfunctional because they lose?