DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Art Modell is Dead

Report: Art Modell hospitalized
Updated: September 6, 2012, 1:12 AM ET

Report: Former Browns/Ravens owner Art Modell seriously ill.

Former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell, 87, is in a Baltimore-area hospital and his condition is worsening, WKYC-TV in Cleveland reported Wednesday night.

Modell's vital organs are failing, according to the TV station, and family members, including sons, John and David, have been with him at the hospital.

Modell owned the Browns from 1961-95, but moved the team to Baltimore for the start of the 1996 season, outraging Cleveland fans.

With Modell as owner, Cleveland reached the postseason 17 times, won 11 division titles and captured the NFL championship in 1964. The following year they lost in the NFL title game to Green Bay.

Modell owned the Ravens until 2004, when he officially sold them to Steve Bisciotti for $600 million. Baltimore won Super Bowl XXXV against the New York Giants in 2001.
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Don't like the guy.

Wish the best for his family, and hope his passing is painless, if it comes to that.

You people are kind....I should and need to be also, Even tho the hurt side of me is saying all sorts of bad & evil things about him, my up brining is telling me to pray for his soul other wise, also my mother has been asking me to forgive him for the last 20 years,

It's hard to forgive someone who took part of you away, took your soul & your heart and sold them to the highest bidder, I may never truely forgive, but I will wish his family well and peace. Nobody should suffer may God bring peace to his soul if it is time. Travel well.

He's gone. RIP, Art.

http://wolbbaltimore.com/1937287/former-ravens-owner-art-modell-dead-at-87/

Best wishes to his family.
RIP Art
Time to move on folks.

Without Comment.

I'm glad. Yep, it went that way...

My condolences to any & everyone who loved & liked him.

The adult in me says "Best wishes to his family, and may he rest in peace".


The sophomoric, sarcastic side of me says:

Purp, I was struggling to find something appropriate to post. Now I don't have to ... you nailed it.

You may agree or disagree but I've personally always
held Michael White more responsible than Art.
The old gal by the lake WAS his business and when his major tenant
lured away the writing was on the wall. Neither side played the situation well.

The Browns should have been taken care of first.

I remeber him saying after winning the superbowl something along the line of it feeling empty because he didn't do it in Cleveland. But no I don't remember any official apology.

As far as the HOF, I'm glad he didn't get in during his lifetime however I think he belongs in the Hall. NFL on TV & MNF he had great influence on and based on that alone IMO he belongs in there. I won't say a word if in the next few years he is inducted.

JMHO

RIP Art.

Never thought in my life I'd say this...


RIP Art.

I can never forgive him for ripping our hearts out though.

Honestly, I thought he was already dead.

I remember back to when William W. Wirtz, former owner of the Chicago Blackhawks, died back in 2007. I was driving our car back from the airport and had sportstalk on.....caller after caller after caller were singing, celebrating and cheering his death. It signaled an end to his reign of terror (at least it was perceived that way).

He wouldn't show home Blackhawks games unless a national broadcastor picked the game up, which was almost never. So really, the only time you could see a Blackhawks home game on TV was in the playoffs (He did offer a home viewing package for $30/month. That package only lasted two years though). He also allowed Bobby Hull, Dominik Hašek, Ed Belfour, Denis Savard, Chris Chelios & Jeremy Roenick leave.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, he took the Blackhawks off TV, traded all of their best players, never won a Stanley Cup under his 40 year watch and in 2004, ESPN awarded the Chicago Blackhawks as the worst franchise in sports...and then the fans booed during the moment of silence to honor WWW's death. AND he didn't even move the team!!!

I don't think it's unfair for any Browns fans to cheer, celebrate or even provide a parting blast at the guy that stole the Browns from Cleveland.

My mom told me if I can't say anything nice...

I'm not going to comment on his passing. But I will say that if I ever get a vote in the HoF, I will vote against modell's inclusion.

I'm looking forward to Kosar's comments...

I've forgotten about the guy for the most part after he didn't have much to do with the Ravens anymore.

It sucks what he did. Luckily, when the team moved, I was more focused on girls than on football. If something like that happened now, I'd probably be a lot more upset.

Anyway, time to move on, I guess. We have a new owner who has nothing to do with the old Browns or even the new Browns. Maybe it's time that the tide is changing, if ever so slowly.

Alot of people had their hands in the Browns move to Baltimore.
One guy that is barely mentioned but was very much a important piece
in the move was Art's right hand man,Jim Bailey. Very much the devil in disguise.
Micheal White,Voinvich, and others dropped the ball.
Art Modell made some very questionable business moves as owner.
We all have made bad finanical decisions we regretted.
the question is,who was a better owner,Modell or the Lerners?
at least under Modell,where never saw the kind of embarrassment that the Lerner's
have instituted since 1999

Meh, he had a good run. Did some good, did some bad. I'm not surprised or saddened that he passed. It sounds mean, but at 87 he had a full life.

i'm just glad the man that chased Paul Brown, Jim Brown and eventually the Browns themselves out of Cleveland never got to see himself inducted into the HOF.

We have an eternity to debate what his NFL legacy truly is. Now is not the time for that, however. Let his family bury their loved one and mourn their loss in peace.

RIP Mr. Modell. My prayers and well-wishes go out to his family and all those saddened by his passing.

Well, I guess I'll be the bad guy. I'm glad. I don't feel any empathy for him, his family or anyone associated with that franchise or city. I literally have a cold, black void where those feelings reside for every other human walking this earth not named Art Modell. I grew up, like all of us here, idolizing and falling ever more in love with the Cleveland Browns. I begged for jerseys, footballs and trading cards from my mom and dad stamped with that Orange helmet. I remember choosing my first jersey in Pee Wee football and how proud I felt when my dad pointed out I had the same number as Eddie "the Assassin" Johnson. My walls were decorated with Kosar posters, Mack and Byner posters, the Slaughter/Langhorne high five poster. I played only with the Browns on Tecmo Bowl as my friends fought over playing with Bo Jackson and Christian Okoye just in the hopes of showing them how awesone the Browns were. I felt unbelieveable highs when I watched the Browns/Jets game in '86 and sunk to new lows (for a 9 year old) when we fell to the Drive. I agonized with my extended family over the fumble that following year. I recall meeting Kevin Mack, Sam Clancy, "Big Daddy" Hairston, Al "Bubba" Baker and Tim Manoa at a charity basketball game and being in awe of how larger than life they were to me, my very own real life superheroes. As I transitioned into a teenager, the Browns were always there and always were part of my lifeblood. Those golden autumn afternoons on Sunday were my family days, where all other facets of life would stop and for four hours, we all were invested; across generations, beyond gender and past any disagreeances the week prior. Wearing my Browns jerseys to school and getting jeered, but holding my head high, saying how the Browns will be great, just watch! The last hurrah of Bernie, the electrifying punt returns of Eric Metcalf, those churning legs of Leroy Hoard, Pepper Johnson and his refusal to quit, Eric Turner and Stevon Moore blasting people, Steve Everitt defining what it meant to be "Brown". Everything was building to what I thought was a turnaround and a championship. Heck, Byner came back to be absolved of all the negativity and rightfully take his place among the Browns greats. I was just a young man heading to my Freshman year of college in that fall of 1995. I remember the optimism, the predictions that we were the team on the upswing, the team to be reckoned with. Then on November 6th, it was gone....



All gone.

I remember my friends looking at me at the union as ESPN reported the news. I had just bought a brand new Browns windbreaker. I remember I was wearing it. I was supporting this team! Why were they moving? Wasn't the stadium full on Sundays? Didn't the fans love this team? The notion that the report was false carried me through that night, but I still thought about it at home. It was almost incomprehensible that the Browns would move! We all know how painfully true it turned out. I still felt hope that someone, ANYONE, would do the right thing and block the move, stall it just long enough for a miracle. But alas, it wasn't to be. I was proud of how Cleveland refused to let it go easy, and fought for the tradition, colors and name that I loved so much. My family watched that last game together, one final time. I remember watching my parents hug as the final time ticked off, the heavy sigh from my dad felt so pained and empty. I watched as the players gave the fans love and the fans reciprocated. That love affair between city and team galvanized forever and told so simply as the players reached for the outstretched hands of WE fans that loved them so. I remember getting in my car and taking a long drive alone, crying as I listened to the radio, hoping no one saw me, a 19 year old boy crying over football.

And for the next few years, the NFL was a footnote to me. I read all Terry Pluto's books about the Browns and thought of all of the what ifs as those horrid purple and black jerseys became the new babies of the NFL. Those years I lived with other people whose love affair with NFL football went unabated, was unaffected because the Steelers were still there, the Bengals were still there, the Cowboys were still there. But where was my team? OUR team? Waking up on Sundays held no more fanfare for me than Mondays. My own thoughts and feelings growing more and more resentful toward Modell with every week I had to endure without football as my friends and some family adopted other teams to cheer on.

In the ensuing years, the Browns came back, my fire inside rekindled and I now love them just as much as before. But I still cannot forgive nor celebrate Modell. EVER. I never cheered for amother team more than I did the Giants of 2000 in the hopes that the Ravens would be denied, because that wound was just too fresh. It still pains me that he got to hoist that trophy before Cleveland. He took from me the love of my life at a time where football really was the glue for a lot of what I was doing. What that says about me, I don't know. I just know that my hatred of him never lessened and now that he's passed, he gets no absolution from me.

Regardless of wether you feel White, Lerner, City Hall, the Indians or anyone else had a hand in the move, Modell made his bed when he left. He had options. Sell some of the team, appeal to the public, etc.. Instead, he shook hands with the devil and dropped to his knees at the altar of greed. He wanted so badly for a legacy for his sons that he shortsightedly surrendered his very soul to gift them nothing. Perhaps that is the most ironic thing I take joy in. That he still had to sell his beloved team due to his incompetence and now his family is left with the albatross that is the Move. I will not participate in a moment of silence, and I certainly hope that the NFL does not force Cleveland to do so. His life does not deserve celebration. His accomplishments, in my opinion, are forever washed away with that one decision. No peace for thieves, scoundrels and miscreants. No peace for Art Modell.

Hmm... all that over a football team. Unfortunately, it says more about you than it does Art Modell. Sad.

Think they'll have a moment of silence across the NFL stadiums this weekend? Well every place but one that is...

I'm trying to remember if they did that when Mara passed. I honestly don't remember it happening league-wide. I could see it in Baltimore, obviously.

Well, other words came to mind, but "sad" seemed the gentle way to go.

Not really. I just don't understand holding grudges of any kind. Never did. I loved the Browns as much as anybody and have very fond memories of gathering with family and friends on Sunday afternoons throughout Modell's tenure. The Browns moving was awful, but life does go on.

Hate is a destructive emotion. IMO, it's best to dispense with it rather than nurture it in the form of a grudge. Life's too short. ::shrug::

with Haslam replacing Lerner in October, does that mean we can replace the "AL" patches with a "Muck Fodell" patch?

Thanks, Rish. That's how I feel about the Browns. I love them. Sorry that someone with the user name BROWNSLIFER can't apprciate that. I knew I'd probably catch crap for posting that diatribe, so Lifer, you're probably just the first to comment in a manner in which you did. Thanks to those that understand. It IS a connection to family, friends, memories, etc... and that is why it is hard to reconcile my feelings towards Modell. He took a lot of that and tainted it. Perhaps I was long winded, but that was the brass tacks of my post.