The release of Browns safety Donte Whitner on Saturday was hardly a surprise.

It was a long time coming, in fact, as the Browns continue to almost completely remake the team.

The Browns are trying to purge salary and create cap space, get rid of veterans whose best days are behind them and un-do as many moves as they can that were made by former General Manager Ray Farmer.

Whitner fits all three of those categories. He can still play a little and will be able to help some team out there that needs a player or two to immediately fill holes and get it over the top, but the clock is ticking on his career, and by the time the Browns will be one of those clubs ready to contend, he will be retired, or very close to it.

The departure of players like this is never easy, but it’s especially hard in cases like that of Whitner. He grew up in Cleveland as a Browns fan, played at Glenville High School and Ohio State and couldn’t wait to return home and play for his hometown team while also serving as one of the leaders on it.

But the fact of the matter is that the Browns were terrible defensively last year and Whitner did not play that well after having made the Pro Bowl following the 2014 season. He has lost a couple of steps and arrived in time only to make tackles after catches, instead of breaking up passes. There were even times when it seemed that he was disinterested.

Some of that may have been the losing – the Browns were 7-9 in 2014 and then 3-13 last season in his short stay here – and the lack of faith he, and others, likely had in defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil’s hard-to-figure-out schemes.

The next in line to go may well be quarterback Josh McCown. Here’s hoping they hang on to eventual Pro Football Hall of Fame left tackle Joe Thomas, but even that is not a certainty.

Because the Browns have changed regimes again and again and again in the expansion era, and have changed such again this offseason, no one wants to hear the truth of these situations. And that’s understandable. But like it or not, when new people at the top come in, they almost always grab big, wide brooms and sweep just about everybody and everything out the door and start fresh. They’ll keep bits and pieces here and there they think are valuable, but they didn’t bring in who and what they’re inheriting so they have nothing invested in them. As such, they have no problem getting rid of them.

That’s the way these new Browns execs and coaches have looked at Whitner and others they’ve sent packing since they were hired. It doesn’t sound good or look nice, but it’s the way the business is, not just in football but in most other workplaces as well. The new group wants to have people they’ve brought in, those with whom they can feel comfortable and trust.

Since the end of the 2000 season when head coach Chris Palmer was fired and all this changing began, Browns fans have waited for the new regimes to build a consistent winner. They are still waiting. And as such they will continue to doubt that anything will change for the better until it actually happens and they can see it with their own two eyes. Their faith is gone, and so is their patience. And it has been that way for a while.

Let’s hope – for their sake – that the members of this new Browns regime fully comprehend it and are prepared for the tough sell that their plans will be. Ohio has become like Missouri is that this is very firmly now a “show me” state.

The only way that will change – the only way that the fans will accept this latest change – is when the results on the field change. Nothing else matters, not any promises or assurances, not anything except wins.

So, yes, the Browns can get rid of guys like Donte Whitner. It’s easy to do that. But the hard part – and the most important part – is replacing them with better players.

We’ll just have to wait and see if that happens.