I get a kick out of all these people – so-called experts and otherwise – who say that, with the franchise’s incessant losing in the expansion era, the Browns have lost a lot of fans.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Those people are still fans, and will remain so until they die. That’s the way fans are. They’re loyal.

But they’re also human and they want to win. They don’t like their team being on the wrong end of the scoreboard way too many times in the past 17 seasons.

That’s certainly understandable. But they haven’t left.

Think of it this way: The fans and the Browns are like a couple. When your significant other does something to make you mad, you don’t break up with them. You go to another part of the house and stay there with steam coming out of your ears until things are better. When that happens, you kiss and make up.

But things aren’t better yet. The Browns haven’t started winning. And they won’t have a chance to make amends for at least eight months.

When – and if – the Browns start beating teams, then the relationship will begin to mend.

If you think the Browns have their luster, then you need to think back only a little over a week ago to when Hue Jackson was hired as head coach. It was a stop-the-presses kind of moment in the region. It’s always that way when the Browns make news.

Let’s hope Jackson can be the marriage counselor the Browns — and their fans – so desperately need.