I have to chuckle – OK, perhaps I’ve laughed out loud a time or two or three or four or more – when I hear someone say that the Browns have lost some of their fan base, and continue to lose it.

Nothing – absolutely, positively nothing – could be further from the truth.

Believe it. Take it to the bank.

Now, granted, that fan base is ticked off. It is really ticked off. It is disappointed, sickened, distraught, fed up and every other negative emotion that you can come up with.

Yes, the fan base is all those things – rolled into one – and then some.

That’s what 20 years of really bad football will do. Even the best fan base in pro sports – yes, the Browns fans are exactly that – can get turned off if you struggle enough. And the Browns have certainly struggled enough – obviously much more than enough, really.

Come on, you know it’s hard to watch this stuff.

This is what happens in a marriage when two people who dearly love each other are at odds over some issue. They go to opposite ends of the house and stay there while they cool off. But they’re ready to come back at a moment’s notice. They just need a good reason to do so.

If the Browns win, that will be a good reason to do so.

Having a good – perceived to be good – performance in the NFL Draft will help. So will a good – again, perceived to be good because you never know until those players take to the field in games that count in the standings – performance in free agency.

But nothing will really change that much until the Browns win. Then – and only then – will the fans come back in droves.

I mention all this because Portland Trail Blazers standout guard C.J. McCollum, a product of GlenOak High School in suburban Canton, told Akron Beacon Journal reporter Marla Ridenour the other day that he’s still a huge, huge Browns fan, just as he was as a kid growing up, and he wants desperately for them to start winning.

There are a lot of people like him all over the world. Yes, the Browns have fans – many of them transplanted Northeast Ohioans – everywhere. They are just waiting for the team to get better again. They haven’t gone away by any stretch of the imagination despite what you may hear and read.

That stuff is all just noise.

Really.

You can bet on it.