3COM PARK Browns have tough task

The 49ers pose a serious possibility of sending Cleveland to a 0-3 start.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Garrison Hearst laughs at the thought of rushing for 295 yards against the Cleveland Browns. He's fairly certain he could never repeat the NFL-record performance of Baltimore's Jamal Lewis last week.
Hearst will be perfectly happy if he rushes for, say, 150 yards, and Kevan Barlow rushes for 150 more.
With one of the NFL's most consistently successful rushing offenses, the San Francisco 49ers could be salivating at the prospect of running through the Browns' maligned defensive front.
Unfortunately, that's not the way this league works, according to both halves of the 49ers' tailback tandem.
"I don't think their defense was horrible at all," Hearst said. "Watching film, Jamal made some great reads. That was an amazing performance. If you get a couple of big runs in any game, records can be broken -- but you can bet they'll definitely be prepared for our running game."
Added Barlow: "They're going to be in practice saying, 'Stop the run, stop the run, stop the run.' Hopefully that can open it up for Terrell [Owens] and Tai [Streets] and Cedrick [Wilson] to make some big plays, and that's when we can run the ball right at them."
I remember you
The clubs are meeting for the first time since the Browns' return to the league, but they share a connected coaching lineage: Cleveland's Butch Davis succeeded Dennis Erickson at the University of Miami in 1995. What's more, Cleveland president Carmen Policy was a 49ers executive from 1983-97 until resigning to run the expansion Browns.
It's an important game for the Browns, whose fans already are grumbling about the playoff team's apparent regression in the first two games of Davis' third season. Lewis' performance was a slap in the face of Davis, who built his defense around players who could stop the run.
"We're doing some things very well, as well as we did them at any time during the course of last season," Davis said. "In Sunday's ballgame, we played the run well for 25 plays and played the run absolutely atrocious for five or six plays. You just can't be that inconsistent. You've got to play well every single snap."
Holcomb woeful
The defense doesn't deserve all the blame for Cleveland's 0-2 start. Kelly Holcomb beat out former No. 1 draft pick Tim Couch for the starting job in training camp, but he's done almost nothing to justify his selection.
Holcomb is 37-of-66 for 329 yards and four interceptions, and the Browns have scored just one touchdown in their first two games.