Are the Browns that far away?

AP file / Morry Gash

The Packers had plenty to celebrate about during head coach Mike Holmgren’s stay in Green Bay. But like Cleveland, the Packers also were in the dumps before Holmgren took over.

Around the good old USA, fans are regarding Cleveland’s NFL team as “same old Browns.”

An nfl.com poll asked which new head coach will reach the playoffs first.

With nearly a quarter of a million votes logged, the tally was: Jason Garrett (Cowboys), 48 percent; Jim Harbaugh (49ers), 23 percent; Leslie Frazier (Vikings), 13 percent; John Fox (Broncos), 9 percent; Rob Rivera (Panthers), 4 percent; Pat Shurmur (Browns), 3 percent.

Particularly insulting is the fact Fox and Rivera inherit teams that posted records worse than Cleveland’s 5-11 in 2010.

But then, it’s the respect one might expect when a team’s season records since its last playoff win have been 5-11, a move to Baltimore, 2-14, 3-13, 7-9, 9-8 (including a playoff loss), 5-11, 4-12, 6-10, 4-12, 10-6, 4-12, 5-11 and 5-11.

Adding to the frustration is the track record of the archrival and the ex-Browns in that span. Pittsburgh is in its sixth AFC Championship game, shooting for its fourth Super Bowl.

Baltimore’s Super Bowl win in the 2000-01 season is becoming ancient history, but it is not nearly as fossilized as 1964.

As Chicago, Green Bay, Pittsburgh and the New York Jets eyed their big games, Browns fans needed the Hubble Telescope to see. It’s a long way to the final four.

Or maybe not.

In the eight seasons since the Browns reached the 2002 playoffs, they have gone a collective 43-85.

Before Mike Holmgren became head coach of the Packers in 1992, things had seemed nearly as grim in Green Bay. In the eight seasons prior to Holmgren’s arrival, the Packers were 8-8, 8-8, 4-12, 5-9-1, 4-12, 10-6, 6-10 and 4-2.

With Holmgren in a headset, the Packers went (including results in six postseasons) 9-7, 10-8, 10-8, 13-6, 16-3, 15-4 and 11-6. That’s 74-40 overall.

In the 46 years since the Browns won the 1964 NFL championship, the franchise has won six postseason games.

In the seven years Holmgren was head coach, the Packers won nine postseason games. The Pack hasn’t been back to a Super Bowl since the two he provided in the late ‘90s.

That is the essence of why so many found it so appealing for Holmgren to appoint himself head coach after he fired Eric Mangini three weeks ago.

Instead, he gave the job to a first-time head coach, Pat Shurmur.

This leaves the question of how great an impact Holmgren can have from the president’s chair.

The answer so far: Not much.

Whereas he inherited a 4-12 team in 1992 and quickly had the Packers at 9-7, his first year as Browns president produced the same 5-11 record the team achieved in 2009 without him.

Holmgren is putting a lot of stock in Shurmur.

“My hope and prayer is that now the changes stop,” he said. “Now the growing and building begins.”

On a cold January day, those words carry a certain chill. It begins NOW? What was the extra year under Eric Mangini for?

A lot depends how Holmgren perceives the dawn of ... whatever.

If growing and building equals the 9-7 Holmgren squeezed out of his first year in Green Bay ...

We’ll guess most Browns fans could live with that.