CLEVELAND — The Browns changed uniforms to start the season and their coach and general manager to end it.

Hours after a 28-12 loss to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers in the season finale, owner Jimmy Haslam fired coach Mike Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer following their second straight losing season in charge.

It’s almost a tradition.

Pettine went 3-13 this season and 10-22 in two years, dropping 18 of his final 21 games after a promising 7-4 start in 2014. Pettine’s job security had been in doubt for months, and not even Haslam’s vow at the start of training camp not to “blow things up” could stop another regime change in Cleveland.

Pettine was the team’s seventh full-time coach since 1999, and the team has changed coaches and GMs five times since 2008.

“I don’t think any of us anticipated going 3-13,” said Haslam, who after firing Pettine returned from the team’s headquarters in Berea, Ohio, to FirstEnergy Stadium to speak to the media. “I certainly didn’t and I don’t think anybody in our building did. Mike and Ray understand. They understand it’s a bottom-line business and you’re paid to win games, and losing 18 of 21 is not acceptable. They get that and they understand that and they’re first-class guys. I hate it for them and obviously hate it for us.”

A former defensive coordinator, Pettine’s ouster can be partly linked to the performance of his defense, which ranked at or near the bottom in the league in nearly every statistical category. He’s the fifth Cleveland coach in eight years to lose his job following a season-ending loss to the Steelers.

Haslam said the team will begin an immediate search for its eighth full-time coach of the expansion era. The Browns have hired Korn Ferry, an executive search firm, to assist with a quest that’s been as perplexing for Cleveland’s front office as the one for a franchise quarterback.

“We want to get the right person,” Haslam said. “I don’t know if it’s going to take two weeks or two months.”

Haslam’s already fired three coaches and three GMs since buying the team from Randy Lerner in 2012.