Tom Puskar, Associated Press You wonder what would have been had Kelly Holcomb and the Browns not squandered that 17-point lead to the Steelers in the 2002 AFC wild-card game at Heinz Field. The Steelers won, 36-33, and the Browns have gone 12-28 since. Click photo for larger image. More Coverage: Bouchette's NFL Notebook: Dolphins bring back offensive set with 2 running backs Steelers Game Day Information: 11/13/05 TODAY Game: Steelers (6-2) vs. Cleveland Browns (3-5). When: 8:30 p.m. TV: ESPN, WTAE.

Fans in Pittsburgh joined those from Cleveland 10 years ago in a sympathetic fraternity to "Save Our Browns." Steelers fans won't clasp hands with them today, but Browns fans continue their mission long after their football team returned.

Despite the emotional efforts in 1995 to save the franchise, the Browns left Cleveland for Baltimore after that season. The NFL reissued the Cleveland Browns as an expansion team in 1999, but fans there are still waiting for pro football to return.

The Browns arrive for a game at 8:30 tonight at Heinz Field against the Steelers, under their third reconstruction in seven seasons. Their record is 33-71 since their return. They're on their third coach and their second administration and, at least this time, they seem to have gotten it right.

Still, the Browns are 3-5 and, for another season, they will follow the path of the old Browns and not reach the Super Bowl. But under first-year coach Romeo Crennel they at least tapped into some of the genius that drove the New England Patriots to win three of the past four Super Bowls.

"With Romeo up there in his first year," Steelers coach Bill Cowher said, "you can see this football team has a lot of different elements to the team we played last year in their whole approach to the game."

Cowher's praise of Crennel doubled as a slap at former coach Butch Davis, whom he disliked on many levels. In that way, Cowher is no different than a lot of former Browns players, who were not even allowed out of their hotels on the road. Steelers receiver Quincy Morgan, a former Brown, derisively called Davis "a college coach" and said the players finally got sick of him.

The new Browns may have muffed their early drafts and stumbled out of the gate as a new franchise, but after climbing back and making the playoffs one year, it was Davis who tore them back down. He was their second coach, after a 5-27 record for two seasons under Chris Palmer. They stole Davis from the Miami Hurricanes hours after he pledged to his college players that he wasn't going anywhere.

That public relations snafu in 2001 eased as Davis' first club went 7-9 and his second 9-7 and made the playoffs as a wild-card team. Fate would bring the Browns to Heinz Field for their first postseason game since the Steelers eliminated them after the 1994 season. The Browns collapsed, blowing a 17-point lead in the final 19 minutes to lose to the Steelers, 36-33.

	No happy returns Numbers of note since the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999: 3 Coaches 3 No. 1 draft picks no longer with the team, including two No. 1 overall selections. 33-71 Overall record 3-10 Record vs. Steelers, including playoffs 15-23 Average game score vs. Steelers 1 Pro Bowl player

Davis then fired his scapegoat, defensive coordinator Foge Fazio and two other coaches and started dismantling his team.

"For someone who preached continuity as hard as he did, [he fired] three coaches after the playoffs and three more the next year," said Steelers receivers coach Bruce Arians, who was fired as Cleveland's offensive coordinator after the '03 season.

Davis followed by engineering a quarterback controversy between the new franchise's first draft pick, Tim Couch, and journeyman Kelly Holcomb. Davis finally was forced out two years later as the Browns won just nine games combined and the franchise realized it had no direction on the field.

"A very specific set of choices were made following the Pittsburgh playoff game," Browns owner Randy Lerner said recently. "I'd say they didn't pan out."

Said Morgan, "We had a great team, and coach Davis totally dismantled that team. That's the truth. Anybody will tell you that. From there on, it all fell apart with the quarterback controversy thing. But the team we had in 2002, if we would have kept that team and came back in '03, we had a chance to do something."

The new Browns haven't done much. Many blame the NFL for awarding the franchise to the late Al Lerner only 12 months before they would kick off in their first regular season. Carolina and Jacksonville, for example, received franchises in the fall of 1993 and did not start play until 1995.

Those two previous expansion franchises also spoiled it for any that would follow because each reached its conference's championship game in its second season of play. But Jacksonville and Carolina also seemed to have better plans, especially in the draft. The Browns can explain their poor start on their late start as a franchise, but that does not account for all their terrible drafts.

"Look at their drafts, they've been awful," said one NFL personnel man who was involved in a previous expansion team. "I don't know if they have core players. Then you have a change in coach, and he runs off players the other guy had. And they still don't have a quarterback. I don't know if they have a left tackle, either. Who's their defensive end? Who are these guys? You can get rid of them, but you better have somebody who can play coming in behind them."

Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Ben Roethlisberger puts his stamps on the rivalry in 2004 -- his first time through what used to be a bitter rivalry. Click photo for larger image.

The Browns' first draft picks in each of their first three years are no longer with them -- Couch, Courtney Brown and Gerard Warren. Their fourth, William Green, is a backup halfback and special-teams player. Their top pick in 2004, Kellen Winslow, is out for his second consecutive season, this time because of his infamous motorcycle accident. Even this year's first pick, Braylon Edwards, No. 3 overall, is not a starter and only has 15 receptions.

They've done a terrible job of drafting since their return, even though they received two picks in each round but the first in 1999 and 2000 as an expansion team.

"I think the biggest problems were the original drafts," Arians said. "When we got there, there were like six of 24 guys from that double draft that weren't on the roster. The draft choices for the foundation never made it."

The Steelers have won nine of their past 10 against the Browns, but Pittsburgh fans don't have much sympathy anymore. Losing their franchise was one thing; losing to the Steelers quite another.