The Browns have no chance to win in Pittsburgh this weekend.

This opinion is based solely on recent history. It was only a couple of years ago, after all, that the Browns declared the Steelers game "just another game." That was the same week Alvin McKinley said the game meant more to the fans because they had been drinking all day leading up to kickoff. (OK, sure).

The Browns have played like it's just another game, too, losing 13-of-14 and providing many not-so-humorous moments in the pantheon of Browns history.

There was this season's opener, a 34-7 loss. Ouch.

There was last season's game in frigid temperatures in Pittsburgh; a Pittsburgh writer wrote that the Steelers hung the Browns up like a piece of meat in a freezer. Grimace.

There was the 24-20 loss last season, when the Browns gave up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Cringe.

And the 41-0 Christmas Eve massacre of 2005, the worst of home losses. Except for the season opener in 1999, when the Browns returned to the field with fireworks, fighter planes and Drew Carey and lost 43-0. For crying out loud.

The list goes on and on and on, including that depressing playoff loss in January 2003, when Orpheus Roye stormed to the sidelines in the second half screaming for the team to get out of its protect-and-don't-attack defense. The Browns didn't. The Steelers won.

The only Browns coach who has been able to beat the Steelers since the end of the three-year hiatus was Chris Palmer. His teams won in Pittsburgh in 1999 and in Cleveland in 2000. Since, the only win was Butch Davis' Sunday night victory in Ketchup Field.

Pretty depressing, when you think about the "rivalry" in its entirety.

But — and this is a crucial but (is there an un-crucial one?) — this seems to be a different Browns team heading to the confluence this weekend. The Browns have accomplished much at the halfway point, and perhaps the biggest thing they've accomplished is getting rid of the stench that goes with being a "losing" team.

Few can explain how the Browns have accomplished their turnaround other than the obvious confidence/Derek Anderson/offensive line/who knows theories. But what's more important than the why is the what (huh?), and what has happened is the Browns are a better team than they were when the season began, last year or the year before.

Of course they have a chance Sunday. But the one hurdle they have not gotten past, the one bugaboo in their ointment, is the Steelers. So it's tough to expect the Browns to win until they actually do.

The Steelers have given the Browns problems for a while, if you recall. Back in the days of the former owner, the Browns tried everything.

Things changed for a bit. The Browns won seven in a row from 1986-1989.

Since 1990, the Browns are 7-23 against the Steelers.

Since 1999, they are 3-14.

Since 2003, they are 1-7.

It has led the Steelers to treat the Browns with disdain. Joey Porter openly mocked them last season, and this week James Farrior said: "They're going to have to pick it up or we're going to stop calling it a rivalry."

If the Browns don't get mad after hearing those words, then they have sleeping pills in their Toaster Strudels.

There has never been a better time to eliminate that last bugaboo.