It doesn't matter how the Browns fare in the season-ending game against the Steelers. The team's place in history is already secure.

The Cleveland Browns (second edition) is the worst professional sports franchise in the city's history.

True, the Browns have suffered through no single season as abominable as that of National League baseball's 1899 Cleveland Spiders: 134 losses in 154 games.

But for sustained ineptitude, this atrocious, Randy Lerner-owned Browns franchise has no peer. The numbers prove it.

Entering this weekend's Steelers game, the Browns' record since the team's return in 1999 is a mind-numbing 68-139. That's a winning percentage of less than 33 percent. The team has one playoff game to its credit -- a first-round loss to the Steelers nine years ago.

Contrast that with Cleveland's other expansion franchise, the Cavaliers, which entered the NBA in 1970. Over the first 13 seasons, the team's record was 407-659, for a winning percentage of just over 38 percent. In addition, those Cavaliers made three trips to the playoffs -- including the heart-stopping Miracle of Richfield team in 1975-76.

But, you might ask, what about all those pathetic Indians clubs from the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, when the team was saddled with owners who could barely afford to keep the lights on?

There's no comparison.

The Indians' worst 13-year run appears to be 1973 through 1985, when the team's overall record was 943-1,091. That's a winning percentage of 46 percent.

And like the Browns in 1999, the Indians were essentially an expansion team when Dick Jacobs bought them in 1986. Nine years later, they were in the World Series -- beginning a run of six playoff appearances in seven years.

Another fascinating, albeit not necessarily on point, comparison: From 1946 through 1958 -- the first years of existence for the real Browns -- the team's record was 128-29, with five ties. That's a winning percentage above 81 percent. In those first 13 years, the Browns won seven championships and were in the postseason every year but one. The first four of those years were in the old All-America Football Conference.

From the very first season, the reborn Browns have had bad players, bad head coaches and a really bad front office.

The late Al Lerner made some gigantic personnel mistakes early in his ownership. But Lerner, who died in 2002, was an incredibly bright guy who, I believe, would have figured out a way to clean up this mess of a franchise.

Lerner's son, an absentee owner, has failed miserably at that task. And though it's too early to fairly evaluate the Mike Holgren era, the first two years under the latest president of the Browns have been underwhelming.

Besides their uniquely awful overall winning percentage, only one other thing is remarkable about the Browns since 1999: the incredibly loyal fans who regularly fill a below-average stadium to watch a team that destroys its own quarterbacks (in more ways than one) and loses 64 percent of its home games.

Never in Cleveland sports history have so many given so much to a team that gives back so little.

Unlike Browns fans, Clevelanders were quick to turn away from the Spiders in those days long ago, when the team played at League Park -- even though the Spiders' winning percentage during the team's 11 years of existence was better than that posted by the new version of the Browns.

In 1899, average attendance at a Spiders game was about what the Browns ownership deserves:

A bit less than 145 paying customers per game.

(Disad)vantage point

Speaking of mistakes on the lake, that's exactly what one of Cleveland's most respected business leaders thinks the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and the city made by creating a storage area within view of a $150 million office building under construction in the Flats.

Don Misheff, who retired Monday as managing partner of Ernst & Young's Cleveland office -- and was the person responsible for the giant accounting firm's decision to relocate to the Flats rather than flee downtown for the suburbs -- is perturbed by what he considers shockingly poor judgment on the part of the port and city. And Misheff has expressed this opinion to many of the town's CEOs.

Apparently, close proximity to an outdoor storage bin is Ernst & Young's reward for keeping 1,000 good jobs downtown.

The plot sickens

All is not well at the Ohio Board of Regents. Nine months ago, Gov. John Kasich unwisely forced out Eric Fingerhut as higher education chancellor, naming former Attorney General Jim Petro to replace him.

Petro is a first-rate administrator. But folks in the governor's office wanted a visionary. (Note: In Fingerhut, they had one.) Meanwhile, Gary Cates, the senior vice chancellor and a Kasich loyalist, is angling for Petro's job.

The sure loser in this mess? Higher education.

Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@plaind.com, 216-999-4252

Previous columns online: cleveland.com/columns