Getty Images

The last time the Browns had a winning record, their quarterback was Derek Anderson.

Anderson led the team to a 10-6 record in 2007 that wasn’t good enough to get them into the playoffs, but was enough to give rise to thoughts that he’d end the search for a long-term answer at quarterback that had gone on since the team re-entered the NFL in 1999. It didn’t pan out that way as the team slumped back to the wrong side of .500 the next season on their way to four more losing seasons and two head coaching changes after the one that ended Romeo Crennel’s tenure in 2008.

Rob Chudzinski, hired last week as the team’s new head coach, was the Browns’ offensive coordinator in 2007 and 2008 and he also coached Anderson in Carolina the last two years. That’s got Anderson, a free agent this offseason, thinking about a return to Ohio.

“Looks like it is time to make a return to a familiar place for some unfinished business,” Anderson posted on Facebook, via the News-Herald in Ohio. “I’d be honored to return to Cleveland to play football if the fans would have me.”

The fans might not be so keen on the idea. Anderson, who completed all four passes he threw for the Panthers this season, slammed Browns fans after getting released by Cleveland in the 2010 offseason, calling them “ruthless” and saying they “don’t deserve a winner” after cheering when he was down on the field with a torn knee ligament. He later apologized, but that might not make much of a difference to Browns fans tired of losing and tired of quarterbacks who don’t have what it takes to move things in a more positive direction.