DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Art Modell is Dead

I took your comment as bashing him for the Browns being so important to him, not bashing him for his distaste of Modell. It seemed you were bashing him on his emotional attachment to the Browns.

I agree with your hate comment and not nurturing it. I learned that lesson in my 20s, and it had a profound impact on me.

Sorry for his family.... No tears here.

At least now I'll have somewhere to dance.

I think, instead of commenting here, I'll just abide by "If you can't say something nice..."

An interesting combination of emotions here...


As for Modell, the man did somethng despicable, and Cleveland did what was necessary to get it back. Mostly the people of Cleveland. They fought to keep the tradition, they fought to keep the colors and name, they fought to keep the team even though there was no team. Which was amazing in itself.
The work that Clevelanders did not only brought a team BACK (the only team in sports history to this point to come back with their history, their name, their team, their colors and everything. BACK. They forced the NFL to admit the mistake and got them to HASTILY put something together so that the Browns could return to the league.

There has been so much thats happened in the NFL and other sports that isnt close. Dallas left for KC and then became the Cowboys, Houston left for Tennessee and then became the Texans, the Raiders and Rams have been jerked between several locations, the Cards were moved to Az and STL got back the Rams. The Supersonics may come back...but only if the Kings falter which their former NBA player has repeatedly fought to prevent...valiantly and heroicly (for the city). The Nets are gone, Vancouver will never see BBall again, and theres more...

The city of Cleveland fought and got back THEIR Browns in 3 years. At that point to me the hatred for Art Modell lessens and almost dies. Then they win a super bowl and that distaste for the man rightfully returns. In retrospect that hurts more than the move in my opinion, because that was a super bowl that rightfully shouldve been celebrated in Cleveland. Since football is back in Cleveland, that hurts more to me.

As for Modell...with the Browns back...with all history intact, its a blessing in disguise. I look at the history of the Cleveland Browns and see everything that happened, will make the success and the greatness all the sweeter. It'll let the future success be all the more worthwhile. We reached a low that no other team in the NFL has ever reached. We had a man in Al Lerner work to get the team back and running. Was it well done? no...but it's football in Cleveland. Al Lerner and the people of Cleveland brought back what was ripped from their souls. While it may be damaged, success will heal that damage, will repair the wound, and create a pride, a happiness, and an overall ownership that will exceed what couldve been felt by a super bowl win before the move.

We had a great team miss the super bowl by a drive and a fumble
We had a great QB jettisoned over some BS
We had a promising team sent to a different city
We got back an expansion team hastily put together
We saw our former team win a super bowl
We have toiled away through inept leadership
We are still toiling away in anonymity with prognosticators saying we may win 1 game

While it all is what it has been. When the big win comes. When the future success comes, which it has to. As Mike Polk said, it is statistically harder to be bad forever. There's going to be a time when we will be good. And that time is coming soon, because Heckert and Holmgren and Shurmur and hopefully Haslam are doing things the right way, building correctly. See the Detroit Lions as the blueprint that we're following essentially. Theyve built the right way, signing guys that can help them when they need that help to get where they need to be. We're building through the draft. Everything we've asked for for the past 12 years...Its coming, and that success, will be better than it ever couldve been before...The amount of awful thats been around will make the win better. More appreciated.


So as for Modell...he's a part of the journey. He's the ex-girlfriend that really let you have it. The girl that tore it out, but when you meet that perfect someone, that success that happiness that you did it right...all that melts away. And the knowledge that itll come, makes the negativity melt away. It's a part of the journey.

He's gone now...and i'm sure he has his regrets about it. He said it. He knows he shouldnt have done it. The city of Cleveland proved that. So with the look toward the future, the past is just a part of the journey. I hold a place for him to not like him, but I love that he's given me that darkness because I know that when the success hits, it will be appreciated in a way I wouldnt have appreciated it before.

It's sad that he's gone, it wouldve been nice for him to see us celebrate what we've wanted forever, but itll be no less sweet knowing he isnt around to see it. I hope he rests in peace, and that his family finds consolation in that he led a full life, a successful life, and that he's made a mark on something that will endure beyond their lifetimes...his kids kids, will have kids which will have kids which will see the fruits of his work and be proud of their dad. Good on him. RIP Art. You were a part of our journey.

Very well said.

I have shed tears for numerous friends and loved ones and i feel for Modell's family but just because he died doesnt make him anything more than what he was and that is the A-Hole that stole football.

You don't have to like a person, but any one person is more significant than any football team.

J/C

I feel for his family, but my feelings on Modell aren't going to change just because he's dead. Far too often we want to bestow sainthood on people after they're dead when we couldn't stand them in life.

As I read Wolfley's post above, I started getting those feelings that I haven't had about the Browns since I was a teenager during those wonderful mid-late '80s teams. Modell is a big reason those feelings are gone.

People seem to forget that HE was the one who put a "moratorium" on talking about the stadium until the season was over, while he was already planning his move behind the scenes. What he did can't be changed.

I don't wake up every day hating Art Modell, but when his name comes up, the last thing I'll do is forgive and forget. And if that says more about me than it does about Modell, well that's just how it is.

j/c..

I'll never 'celebrate' anyone's death. He was still a human being.

But, should I all of a sudden like the guy, and forgive him and mourn his death?

Hell no.

I hated the guy when he was alive, and I hate him now.

However, there's still people who lost a father, a friend, etc.


Consider me indifferent about his death.

Yep, that's how I feel about it, TopDawg16.

And if expansion team we root for had 13 Super Bowl trophies on the shelf, I'd feel the exact same way about him . . .

J/C,
The people from Baltimore feel and felt the same way about Irsay, alot with deep hatred to this day( an dthey got a team with a super bowl), and some that have gotten over it. Ironically, I have been apologized too from Balt fans who understood what it was like to lose a team.

But the crazy part is that both teams came from cities that really could not afford to build a new stadium. And both cities were kinda held up by MLB to build their teams stadiums. Just ironic

If I can't say nothing good then I'll say nothing at all ... except that with his passing, perhaps the curse dies with him.

I wasn't around for the Buckner error.

However, I can say that MOST Sox fans have forgiven Buckner.

But, here's the difference between Buckner/Byner, and the other guys you've mentioned.

Buckner/Byner made mistakes. They played their hearts out for the city. They didn't TRY to lose those games. They made mistakes.

LeBron/Belle/Manny - They left their teams, and chose to play elsewhere. Yeah, it hurts, but it was a personal decision.


Art Modell took and ENTIRE team away from the city of Cleveland. There was NO MORE FOOTBALL for the city of Cleveland.

In those other cases, rough times were ahead, but you still watched the team you loved every year.

Exactly. I don't begrudge Player-X for wanting to play in Miami, Boston, NY or Minnesota. Maybe he grew up there, maybe his little league manager is now the coach or maybe he'll get paid 5% more. I moved from Cleveland to Chicago for my reasons and it's each individual players right to move too.

I think most were upset at Lebron for HOW he moved, not his actual movement. I understood why Belle, Manny, Thome and others have left.

As for player performance, it's hard to forgive Dropcutt for that Pittsburgh playoff game, Byner for the fumble, etc. Maybe I have, maybe I haven't....but I would be able to erase the painful memory with a title (or at least put enough good memories over it that it would be hard to bring it back).

For art, nope....it's there and it ain't leaving.

And for me, the fact that he ran the finance side of Baltimore into the proverbial ground proves to me that he should have sold the Browns before moving them. The move wasn't going to save them from his crappy ownership. He had no business owning an NFL team, period.

I am not sure how I feel today, with all the coverage on espn bringing back memories it's easy to forget that some one lost a love one.
I'm gonna need a day or two to see how I feel.
I do know that I can not hate someone i have never met, I can hate what he did but hate is a very strong word.

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Art Modell took and ENTIRE team away from the city of Cleveland. There was NO MORE FOOTBALL for the city of Cleveland.

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As I read that I picture you stomping your feet and holding your hands on your hips like my 9 year old does when she doesn't get her way... and I'm reminded of how totally out of whack we can get our priorities some times.

Ahhh, I was wondering if "The Decision" would be brought up.

I still don't feel as if Lebron did anything wrong. I mean, Carlos Boozer did a worse thing in my eyes than Lebron did by leaving the Cavs.

For me, it's always going to be about HOW he went about it. I mean, come on, it was a sham from the start. I'm absolutly convinced that this was in the books 3 years prior to "the decision". And it still took them 3 tries to win it all.

I don't dislike Lebron for leaving, I dislike how he went about it.

Look at CC Sabathia when he left. He was Classy all the way.. Even took out a full page ad in the PD thanking the fans of Cleveland and still to this day, speaks highly of his time here.

But we're a small market team in a sport that doesn't really have a salary cap so deep pockets can get any player they want. And they usually do.

If I'm CC, I don't pass up that money either.

my sympathy to the friends and family of the Modell family.

I'm just saying we often let a death fool us into remembering someone fondly.

Whether it was right to hate a guy over football or not, I did. Most did.

Should I all of a sudden decide I like Modell and mourn his death? I don't think so.

I am, however, not one of the people who are going to dance on his grave. He was a human being. But, at the end of the day, it was a person I didn't like, he's gone, I'm neither sad nor happy.

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I'm just saying we often let a death fool us into remembering someone fondly.

Whether it was right to hate a guy over football or not, I did. Most did.

Should I all of a sudden decide I like Modell and mourn his death? I don't think so.

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I agree that sometimes death causes us to gloss over people shortcomings in an effort to remember them fondly. I'm not asking anybody to forget what he did, though I bet it was as hard or harder on him than it was on most fans. I just think in death sometimes you can find perspective, that Modell's life was about a lot more than that one season... he did a lot of good for Cleveland over the years, he did a lot of good for the NFL.... so you don't have to swoon over him, but to discount 80+ years of a guys life because of one business decision you didn't like isn't exactly logical either.... and that's what it was, a business decision.

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someone steals your custom 1965 Lincoln Contenential you spent hundres of hours restoring, your house accidentally burns down, you're favorite pair of shoes fall out of your work out bag, etc.... Are we not allowed to be upset over something that has no real priority in life? ...ok, house may be a bad example since you require shelter to live, but assuming you could build a new one and be fine. You get my point though, right?

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Of course you are allowed to be upset... be upset at the guy that stole your car because what he did is illegal. If your house burns down be upset at the person who started it, be upset that you lost irreplaceable possessions like old photos, if your shoes fall out of your bag be upset at yourself because you let it happen... but should you still be mad about these things almost 2 decades later? Every time you pass a historic car on the road should you get mad? Clinging to that kind of anger for that long is very unhealthy.

So let me see if I've got this right, from your perspective:

1. People shouldn't have emotional attachments to a sports team because ... as you say ... their priorities would be out of whack.

2. People shouldn't blame Art or be mad at Art because it was a business decision.

3. Your daughter has temper tantrums.

4. All of us posters are poor.

I think that about sums it up.

I feel so much smarter. Thanks.

Long winded much ?

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His life does not deserve celebration.

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One of the most moronic things I have ever read on here ( and that says a lot ).

34 years, 11 division titles, 17 post season apperarnces.

A division title every 3 years and the playoffs 1 out of 2 years.

In other news, 2 days ago, I read the Browns have reached the playoffs 4 times since 1989.

Sigh! Well, we have Josh Cribbs, and had Andra Davis... ( sound of tiny party noisemaker being blown half heartedly.)
Art has a legacy, and he knew how to win, ... and it would be great if the Browns could figure out how to win too.
If you want to re visit the situation, The Ravens should have been BURIED in the NFC WEST, where I never had to listen to em, think about em, or see thier ugly uniforms more than 2 times a (blessed) DECADE!!! AND! We should have been allowed to buy Browns gear duing the 3 year abscence.

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1. People shouldn't have emotional attachments to a sports team because ... as you say ... their priorities would be out of whack.

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No, I have emotional attachments to sports teams, but I keep it in perspective especially as it involves the business side of sports... or at least I try to.

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2. People shouldn't blame Art or be mad at Art because it was a business decision.

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I hated Art for a while. We have a new team, new stadium, the fact that 13 years later we still suck isn't Art's fault. It's like if you have a girlfriend you are really serious about and she cheats on you and you hate her... then you find a new girlfriend and you are with her for years, is it still worth hating the old girlfriend? No, at some point you have to let it go.

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3. Your daughter has temper tantrums.

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No, just a bit of an attitude. I wonder where she gets it.

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4. All of us posters are poor.

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I never said anything like that...

I don't think that is what he meant, but that holding onto it for so long is not good for you. Sure you can fell an emotion for what happened but to carry that hate so strong that even after all these year's is just a lil wrong. Should not time heal most wound's? maybe not compleatly but to the point as to you are not still lost in time?

J/C

My fandom for the team started in '99 when the Browns came back. Even before that year I thought Modell was an idiot for moving the team. My fandom has grown immensely since that year.

There was a DVD which came out five or six years ago. The DVD chronicled the history of the Cleveland Browns from the team's inception all the way up till the end of the 2007 season. The DVD did a wonderful job chronicling the different seasons, with archived interviews from players of the different eras, and summed up our history in a nice succinct package.

I began to understand the absolute hatred for the man named Art Modell as I watched the DVD. Here is a man who comes in with no football knowledge and fires, sorry Lombardi, the greatest football coach of all time. Maybe the organization wasn't big enough for the two giant egos of Brown and Modell? We know that to be the case of Mangini and Holmgren, but I digress.

Modell remained relatively quiet and gained fan support after the firing of Brown. He stayed in the shadows, or so I assume, up until the 90s. There was nothing wrong with the Indians and Cavaliers receiving new stadiums. The Browns needed an update to the old concrete behemoth off the shore of Lake Eire. Whether it be a total renovation or new stadium was left to be seen. Modell got impatient, turned into a child, and did the unthinkable.

The Browns moved despite the owner of the franchise's arch-rival, Dan Rooney, pleaded for the owners to vote against the move. It's a weird world when I have to feel more compassion for Rooney than I do Modell. They became an organization which drafted players who excelled in defense and have left much to be desired in a vertical passing game. Much can be said about the character of Ray Lewis and Jamal Lewis but this is not the thread to do such things.

In closing, how do I feel about the passing of Modell? I wish his family well in this tough time with the loss of an individual they cherished. As for Art himself? I hope he enjoyed his ultimate success built off of the fans he ripped a team away from.