An open letter to every owner, head coach, general manager/director of football operations, scout and team president for the Browns in the expansion era:

Congratulations!

A hearty congratulations to each and every one of you!

Your efforts – or, as it were, a lack thereof – are inarguable proof that if you take something nice and pristine, something that former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano glowingly called “the flagship of the fleet,” and smash it against a brick wall long enough and hard enough, you can damage it beyond recognition.

You have done just that with the Cleveland Browns. So take a bow. You’ve made history.

As another horrible season finishes its crash-and-burn against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at Heinz Field, Browns fans are hoping that their team, an ignominious 0-15, has finally, and mercifully, hit rock-bottom, meaning that the only way to go from here is up.

You would think that, wouldn’t you?

But history tells us that is not true. Just when everybody thinks it can’t get any worse, it does. It always does. There is seemingly no bottom in this mine shaft, so the free fall can just go on and on and on.

That’s criminal. You – all of you ignorant, stupid nincompoops – ought to be locked up and the key thrown away.

What I’d like to do – and I think I speak for every Browns fan when I say this – is to line all of you up and then administer the vaunted “Three Stooges Slap” from one end to the other.

That may sound funny. It may cause you to laugh, or at least smile.

But I’m not kidding. I mean it. I’m as serious as a heart attack.

You have hurt the best sports fans in the world, so I’d like to hurt you.

You deserve it. You certainly deserve it.

And then some.

These fans fought like crazy to get the Browns back after the original franchise left for Baltimore following the 1995 season. They battled the all-powerful NFL and won by forcing it to give Cleveland back its team. As such, they made good history, not the bad history that will forever be attached to your legacies.

If you had tried as hard to make good decisions as you tried to make horrible decisions, then the Browns would be in the Super Bowl every year. No doubt about it.

The Super Bowl is the one place the Browns have never been.

Right now, the Super Bowl might as well be the moon. The Browns are that far from it.

And it’s all because of you.

All of you.

All of the time since 1999.

At least you’ve been consistent.

Now get out of here. Get away from my football team – our football team – and stay away from it.

Sincerely,

Steve King