Another NFL season is upon us. Teams are tweaking their rosters, fine-tuning their plays and getting ready for 16 weeks of games.

Tomorrow afternoon, folks will settle in front of their TVs as the Steelers take on the Cleveland Browns.

I hope the Steelers fall flat as a week-old I.C. Light.

See, I'm a Browns fan. I have been my whole life. Even though I moved here from Ohio 22 years ago, it hasn't diminished my loyalty. As a matter of fact, moving to Pittsburgh only sharpened my love for the Browns and my hate for the Steelers.

If you're a true Steelers fan, you understand where I'm coming from.

But this autumn is going to be different -- and difficult -- for me. I gave up my Browns season tickets that I'd held for 28 years.

It wasn't an easy decision.

I still love the team and will root for them as passionately as ever. But it was getting increasingly hard to justify the cost, about $1,400 for two seats, not to mention the 2 1/2-hour drive to Cleveland.

It's not just the money.

I can't even take my own children to the games, like my father took me.

My two oldest have turned on me and are total fans of 'em Stillers. I still have hope for my youngest one, who is only 2. But the older ones have already brainwashed him to say "Go Steelers." I fear it's only a matter of time before he, too, turns to the dark side.

My wife is still a Browns fan, thank God, but it's hard for us both to go, so I've often been left to recruit someone to go to games with me.

The cost of the tickets was easier to swallow back in the day when the Browns were winning. Or even competitive. But they've been neither for quite some time.

This year, they look like they may be headed in the right direction. They drafted a quarterback and they've got some quality players, so I'm hopeful about their future.

I just won't be doing it as a season ticket holder.

And sure, I'll be watching the Browns on TV, but it just doesn't compare to being there. When you're at a game, you're an active participant. You can feel the ebb and flow. As fans, you can make enough noise to spur on the defense or disrupt the other team's quarterback.

I'll miss all that. And I'll miss watching the pregame warmups, mingling with strangers who forged kinships bonded by years of wearing the team colors. I'll the miss the friendships I've made over the years.

I got my first taste of pro football in 1964, when I was 9. My dad took me to Cleveland Municipal Stadium to see the Browns play the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't remember much about the game, except that it ended in a 33-33 tie. The Browns won the title that year, beating the Baltimore Colts 27-0, and he got season tickets the next year.

Going to the games with my dad are some of my most cherished childhood memories. It was our special time together. The Browns were our bond.

The Browns of my youth were Hall of Famers: Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly, Lou Groza, Paul Warfield, Gene Hickerson and Dick Schafrath. Later on, we had the Kardiac Kids with Brian Sipe, Gregg Pruitt, Doug Dieken and Ozzie Newsome.

Our seats in the cavernous stadium would have been great for baseball, but were horrid for football, they were so far from the action. But it didn't matter, really. You got to watch your heroes play on a Sunday afternoon. The air was a delicious mix of roasted peanuts, cigar smoke and optimism.

A lot has changed since I saw my first game. The Cardinals are now in Arizona. The Colts are in Indianapolis. The Browns, well, the old Browns, are now in Baltimore, where they are the hated Ravens.

Thankfully, we still have the twice-a-year showdown with the Steelers, who have always been my favorite -- and most worthy -- opponent.

For decades, my stadium address was Section 37, Row 15, Seats 13 and 14. The seats were on the 45-yard line, lower deck, behind the visitors.

It was from there that I witnessed Red Right 88, when Brian Sipe threw a heartbreaking interception in the end zone in a frigid playoff game against the Oakland Raiders. And I was there for The Drive, when John Elway improbably took the Denver Broncos down the field for a game-tying touchdown in the AFC Championship.

As haunting as those losses were, those were championship-caliber teams that treated us to stirring triumphs and last-second victories. The players are long retired but we remember them like old friends.

That's why we keep coming back. That's why we wave our orange flags and that's why fully grown adults bark in joy at a great play.

For a time, though, there was nothing to come back to. That was the dark time, when there was no Browns team in the late '90s, after the owner whose name I won't dignify by mentioning moved the team to Baltimore.

When the team was reborn, fans were only too glad to fork over thousands of dollars for personal seat licenses and season tickets. And while the new stadium is nice, with its Jumbotrons and fancy loges, it doesn't rock like the old stadium did when it was filled with 80,000 diehard fans.

Maybe that's because the new team has mostly been a joke since the Browns came back in 1999. They were like cardboard cutouts of real football players. The Steelers embarrassed them 43-0 in the first game of the new era. But we paid them back later that year, beating them in Three Rivers Stadium, on a last-second field goal. And yeah, I was there.

But that's all history. It's time to strap it on again and go to battle. The Browns host the Steelers tomorrow and, while the realist in me says we could get crushed, the fan in me will be looking for an upset.

A friend remarked that if I was finally giving up my Browns tickets after all these years, perhaps I'll switch my loyalties to the black-and-gold before long.

I just smiled at him -- and barked.