Everybody is complaining that the NFL should do away with its four-game preseason because it’s too long.

How much worse would the hue and cry be if the schedule were six games, or even longer?

Don’t laugh. It used to be that way.

It was on this date 38 years ago, on Sept. 9, 1977, that the Browns completed their six-game preseason with a 24-20 loss to the Detroit Lions. It would be the last of the four-game preseasons. The NFL had voted to go from a 14-game regular season to one of 16 games for 1978, and as a result of that, they would be lessening the preseason to four games, or five if a club played a week before everyone else in the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game.

Those six-game preseasons were like dog years, or the 100-year war. They lasted forever.

But they were needed, for, unlike now when there are almost year-round strength and conditioning programs, OTAs and mini-camp practices to keep the players in shape, thus eliminating the need for six-game preseasons, players back then had to get offseason jobs to make ends meet. Their NFL salaries didn’t pay them enough. As such, they came to training camp to get into shape, and a long preseason was a necessary part of that.

In 1956, the Browns played in a club-record seven preseason games, the first being in the annual College All-Star Game in Chicago which matched the defending NFL champions against a team of college all-stars. That game was on Aug. 10. The Browns finished the preseason on Sept. 21. By Sept. 21 of this year, the Browns will have played two regular-season games.

In 1978, Sam Rutigliano’s first year as head coach, the Browns finished their four-game preseason on Aug. 27. The players probably thought it was a vacation compared to what they had been used to for years.