It is still extremely early in the Browns’ complete rebuilding effort.

 

Sure, it has officially started and the Browns have done a lot to make themselves better – at least on paper – but in one big, important way, it hasn’t really, truly started because they still don’t know who their franchise quarterback is. Perhaps they will by the end of this season. Or perhaps not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

But there’s not much use spending time thinking about the end of the season. That’s a long, long way off – a little over 3½ months – and a lot can, and will, happen between now and then.

 

What is worthy of your thoughts and focus, though, is Sunday’s regular-season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers at FirstEnergy Stadium.

 

Everybody is making predictions now. That’s what people do at this time of the year. I’ve said for a while – and still believe it – that the Browns will win five games this season. My good friend, longtime Browns radio play-by-play announcer Jim Donovan, whose opinion of this team I value more than that of anyone else, said just before training camp began that they’d have six victories.

 

Either way, the Browns are not making the playoffs this season. I think we can all agree on that.

 

Here’s something else on which we can all come to the same conclusion, and it is that at some point, the Browns are going to have to do something big – really, really big – to jump-start their rebuild. They are going to have to have a signature event – a seminal moment – that changes everything. It is something that, for the first time, gives everyone tangible evidence that the Browns are getting better – not just a little better, but markedly better – and that, yes, this rebuild just might have a real chance of succeeding.

 

This game against Pittsburgh provides just such an opportunity. The Steelers have long been kings of the AFC North and have had their way with the Browns for the nearly two decades of this expansion era. If the Browns ever want to think about being the best team in this division, then they have to start beating the best.

 

Certainly, the odds are stacked against the Browns.

 

Along with Pittsburgh being pretty darn good, the Browns will be without injured rookie defensive end Myles Garrett, who in training camp and the preseason showed why he was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, and will be starting a rookie quarterback in Toledo native DeShone Kizer, the latest candidate to perhaps be the club’s long sought-after franchise passer.

 

But if the Browns wait until everything is perfect to get that perfect moment, they’ll be waiting forever.

 

Pittsburgh has issues, too, such as standout running back Le’Veon Bell possibly not being in great football shape after skipping training camp. Every team has issues. I mean, did you see last Thursday night’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs, a heavy underdog, and the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots?

 

Think about this, too: The Steelers’ rise to power in the early 1970s was built on victories over the Browns, who had dominated Pittsburgh for two decades en route to winning championships while the Steelers had never even been to a playoff game in their history. The Steelers beat the Browns at Pittsburgh in 1970, and again in ’71, both by one-sided margins after having lost the last three times to the Browns at Pittsburgh by 19, 21 and 20 points.

 

And in 1972, after being edged by the Browns 26-24 in Cleveland just two weeks earlier, the Steelers rolled to a 30-0 shutout victory in the rematch and took control of the AFC Central over the Browns as they won their first division title and qualified to go to the postseason for the first time.

 

Then in 1974, when they swept the season series over the Browns for the first time since 1959, and just the second time overall, and defeated the Browns in Cleveland for the first time since 1964, the Steelers went to the Super Bowl for the first time ever and won it.

 

A coincidence? I think not. A team measures its progress with building blocks. Finally beating your rival after it has beat you up for a long, long time is indeed a building block — and a huge one, at that, a real game- and image-changer.

 

The Browns could start that long, difficult journey on Sunday. They can only hope that history repeats itself – in a reverse kind of way.