After all, we are the most fanatic of fans who live and breathe NFL football and Lerner is a billionaire who has taken his father’s legacy seriously — but does Lerner know what he wants the Browns new identity to be.

Rumors from The Really Big Show WKNR-850 AM, have been swirling around the past few days.

One rumor is that Bill Cowher asked Lerner if he could wait a year to be offered a job with the Browns. (So is Mangini a kind of an interim coach?)

Another rumor is that Mike Shanahan is waiting at least a week to wind-down, whatever. But that the Browns head coaching job would appeal to the Denver Broncos coach whom many believe was unjustly fired.

Shanahan is good with young quarterbacks, knows how to teach them, mentor them.

I get excited just thinking of Shanahan and Brady Quinn working together. Quinn is a hard-worker, fearless on the field, can roll out and throw, run, is smart and can read defenses.

With this dynamic duo, the Browns may be able to cross that foreboding Red Zone and perhaps score six points on an elusive touchdown.

The downside is, Shanahan would probably not take on the general manager duties in Cleveland as he did in Denver — and Shanahan’s ego may be too large to take a job with only one job description: that of head coach.

On the other hand, being the head coach of this Browns team is no walk in the park. Plus, if Shanahan can turn this team around, he can have the huge satisfaction of letting the football world know the Denver ownership screwed up big time by letting him go east.

Randy had no interviews on Monday, according to the so-called “source” cited by The Plain Dealer.

Although there is no magic bullet, no Messiah waiting in the wings to take the Browns to the Promiseland, I know who it shouldn’t be — and that’s Eric Mangini.

The Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot remembers in the early ’90s, when Mangini was a gopher for the Belichick-led Browns.

“We used to ask Eric to bring us some more Dr. Peppers,” Cabot said.

From gopher to winning head coach in 15 years? It could happen.

But Randy Lerner ought to think about his next Browns hire very, very carefully.

He has got to get it right this time.