DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Art Modell is Dead

Quote:

---

DC, I'm not saying you meant to belittle people, but that's how it came across to me ...

---

Then I apologize for that. Was never my intent.

Quote:

---

and I know it wasn't directed at me because I haven't really said anything in this thread about Art, but I just think people shouldn't tell others how to feel on this one.

---

I don't intend to tell other people how they should feel, just that in general, hating somebody decades later for something they did that didn't even really directly impact your life, is unhealthy... heck, carrying that kind of hatred about anything is unhealthy.

I can't wait till ESPN has a panel of Jim Brown, Trent Dilfer, and Derek Anderson discuss about how Cleveland should just let it go...

Didn't mean any thing toward's you just what I thought Dc meant to say, Maybe because of my age iv,e gotten a lil soft hearted? I know this had a lot of emotional impacts on all of us.
Believe me I shed a tear when he took our beloved team from us.
And as I posted earlier i,m not sure how or what I should feel right now, just reading other post's and feeling the need to join in.

The things that always got me about Modell picking up and moving were these .....

He spoke out against Baltimore in expansion, saying that a city that lost a team due to lack of support should not get a new team.

When he moved the team, he said it was so that he could keep the team in his family for generations to come.

Yeah .... lies, damn lies, and Modell's words.

I'm conflicted, but after hearing some revisionist history of Modell is making my blood boil again.

For one, Art Modell was not forced out of Cleveland because we wouldn't build him a new stadium. He had a chance to get a new stadium for his team. It just wasn't under HIS terms and he declined being part of the Gateway Project.

"'Poppy' was a special man who was loved by his sons, his daughter-in-law Michel, and his six grandchildren," David Modell said. "Moreover, he was adored by the entire Baltimore community for his kindness and generosity. And, he loved Baltimore." - David Modell

This quote sums up all you need to know about this snake and his off-spring.

j/c

I'll be nice. Someone died. That someone was special to his family and friends. Just like when one of my relatives dies - they are special to me.

I didn't care when michael jackson died, or any other "celebrity", and to that extent, I don't care about Modell. Not trying to be mean, at all. But the owner of a football team I don't root for died. He lived a good life. Sad for the family.

It's going to happen to all of us.

Bravo! You just summed up everything I felt when I, along with my 2 son's watched the last game on tv. After the game I held my son's and we all cried. It hurt like crazy. I guess some fans just don't get what it means to be a true Cleveland Browns fan. I know, with me it gets in your blood, and no matter what happens, you live and die every Sunday with the Browns. Being a Browns Fan is so much more than liking a team or just saying your a fan. I fell in love with 'em in '67, when I was 9. It's like your first wife, no matter what happens, nothing compares to the first time. That's what a True Browns Fan is like. First Love, Only Love and it''s sad we all don't feel that way. Other wise some wouldn't feel the way they do.

I pray that his family will find peace during this time... he did a lot for football and should be considered a great man in the NFL....

as a Cleveland fan I don't like the guy, and will never like him... but in the grand scheme of things there are things much bigger than football... so I will try to not hate him too much now that he is gone.

Great post!

j/c

Watching Browns Red Zone and Jimmy D is posing the question: "Should there be a moment of silence at the stadium this Sunday and what if it is a league wide thing?"

I hope that we are not put in what is a very unfair spot. The obvious says that when 68,000 people keep quiet, the only thing heard will be boos from the 5%. I for one would bite my tongue and keep quiet, but there will be those who won't and they will be used as "Cleveland's response" in the national media. We have enough black eyes already. Let Baltimore do its thing for who was a former majority owner and not even a current one.

Curious to know if there were moments of silence for Al Lerner at other stadiums after his passing.

I heard this morning on my way to work that he died of heart failure. I didn't think he had a heart.

The word I think of when I think of Art Modell is huckster.

He was a terrible owner. He was a terrible business man. And when push came to shove he robbed the city of Cleveland of their most prized institution.

I'll never forget hearing about the move. I was attending Miami University and had just come back from a class my senior year. I lived with six other guys, most of whom were from Chicago. Big Bears fans too. They were watching ESPN in the living room and they were totally silent when they saw me. They knew what a huge fan of the Browns I was. They just pointed to the TV ... at Modell on the tarmac. They didn't even say anything. It was like someone died. Or you go back to your house only to see it destroyed by a tornado or something. It was a dumbfounding, ruinous day.

He stabbed all of his fans, his paying customers in the back and left. For that he'll never be forgiven. Nor should he be.

A huckster died today.

Moving on....

Quote:

---

Watching Browns Red Zone and Jimmy D is posing the question: "Should there be a moment of silence at the stadium this Sunday and what if it is a league wide thing?"

---

I doubt the NFL would do this at our game. They'd know what they'd get, and rightfully so. The guy screwed us over.

I am sorry for the family, but I have no feelings for the guy. And I don't think the Browns Fans should have to honor the guy who moved the team.

The Browns sent out a memo today sending their condolences to the family, that is enough.

There shouldn't be anything before the Browns game, I don't care where else they do or don't do it, but it shouldn't be done in Cleveland. I agree with most, nothing good will come out of that.

If they have a moment of silence.. I can see kazoos and new years noisemakers being brought out.

My father was a Browns fan his entire life. It broke my father's heart when the Browns left. He died in 1998, one year before they returned. So for many years I hated Art Modell, even though I'm not a Browns fan. The Browns have been back since 1999, and for me it's time to forget the hatred.

By the way, many Steelers fans hated Art Modell as well because of what he did. Just remember that Rooney was one of the owners who voted against the move.

RIP Art Modell

I'm 26 years old, I wasn't a Browns fan when they left.

My first NFL memory is of Bret Favre running with his helmet off in the SB. And half of my family screaming in delight (That half is from WI, where I was born)

It would of been really easy for me to become a Packers fan.

But I lived in Ohio.

I was NOT going to be a Bengals fan. I don't know why, because I wasn't even aware of how bad they were, there was just something about them that put me off.

Then my dad said Cleveland is getting another team...

Another? I knew OF the Browns, but not really, a few shows on ESPN Classic ("Why is this show called "The Fumble?...Oh...") locked me in forever...

My point is, that I may not of been a fan at the time, but part of me still feels that Art Modell stole something from me, the ability to grow up with the original Browns.

And sitting here watching Jim Brown gush over him on ESPN makes me sick.

jc,

I am not that sad about Art passing to be clear. I'm not happy either. I've grown past hating the man. I still totally dislike him as a football owner. He in that area deserves no repect from anyone.

Sperg you mentioned in that great post one wrong thing imo that people bring up as to why Art should be honored......the TV deals. From everything I've ever been able to find out about that.......it was all Pete Rozelle. Art's part was basically "yeah, Pete get us as much money as you can" and being on the committee. I mean who votes against more money? So visionary in regards to Art..........yeah right........the tv stuff is all Rozelle.

Then beyond that he drove out the best coach ever, never was able to put a great team together, somehow lost money when the team averaged over 70,000 fans a game for over 30 years, and somehow lead the league in merchendise sales many years. I mean somehow that is now "good"? He was horrible, and deserves all the scorn in the world in regards to football.

Oh yeah, and ripped my heart out as well as millions others because he was greedy. He could have sold the team and left it in Cleveland.

j/k

I will not celebrate his life nor will I celebrate his death, to me he was & is nothing worth pointing out, When they announced he had passed, funny how I pictured his death just like the seen from scrooge movies,...

If there is a moment of silence I will use that time to try to forgive, & move on and over this subject, his chapter is done, Time for OUR Browns to start a new one, one of Winning, one of becoming the model franchise we once were and can be again, what better time to start winning again....GO BROWNS

LeBron broke hearts in Cleveland, but ex-Browns owner Art Modell did far more damage
by Jeff Passan

On my refrigerator growing up, next to the rotating report cards and detritus of a busy life, hung two permanent decorations. The first was the rare Sports Illustrated cartoon cover, in which a bespectacled, white-haired man with a glower sucker-punched a bipedal dog wearing a Cleveland Browns jersey and helmet. The second was a bumper sticker with a simple phrase: "Will Rogers never met Art Modell."

My dad put them there just in case a day went by and he didn't think about what Art Modell had done to Cleveland. They turned into subliminal cues, kindling to a fire that Browns fans promised themselves to keep alive when Modell absconded with our football team.

Ours. Cleveland's. Not Art Modell's, even if he was the majority owner. Not Baltimore's, even if that city understood better than any other the hurt of losing a football team to a greedy businessman. Professional sports franchises are public trusts, bound to their cities by symbiosis. Don't give up on us and we won't give up on you, the relationship goes, and Cleveland always wore the Browns with pride, maybe more than anything in a city that needed something to cheer about.

Sports in Cleveland have mirrored the city as much as any in the United States: filled with loss, heartbreak and an unrelenting pride that neither trials nor travails nor anything, frankly, can break. Its spirit, sporting and otherwise, is strong, steeled by its sadness. Because of the Internet and Twitter and other vehicles of vitriol available, the world got to see Cleveland at what seemed like its nadir, when LeBron James left for Miami. Jerseys burned. Words blistered. Comic Sans MS made its triumphant return.

And here's the thing: For those of us who experienced the Cleveland Browns morphing into the Baltimore Ravens, this was a sin far less damning, one that would melt away because players are meant to move and teams aren't.

LeBron James broke Cleveland's heart. Art Modell stole its soul.

Art Modell died Thursday morning. He was 87 years old. I felt nothing.

Some friends in Cleveland celebrated like they do in Oz when the Wicked Witch dies, and other friends around the country lamented the loss of someone whose reputation evolved from mediocre-and-indebted owner and devil-dealing charlatan to one of the great owners in NFL history.

The shift of Art Modell's personal narrative over the 6,148 days since he announced the Browns would move to Baltimore continues to confound. He was influential in growing football on television, the godfather of Monday Night Football, and for this his benefactors not only applaud him but look past what he did to Cleveland as if it were but a blip on his legacy and not the defining moment. A man is defined by the body of his actions, and to ignore the effect Modell's selfishness had on a city that loved football, loved its team and needlessly had both thieved is the worst sort of revisionism, the sort in which Joe Paterno's supporters engage: don't let the defining moment of the man's life color all of the good things he did.

While his sin was nowhere near as egregious as Paterno's, Modell did slim-jim his way into the Baltimore market through backdoor politicking, vote-rigging and shady 1 percenter maneuvers. He had run the Browns tens of millions of dollars into debt and had neither the savvy nor the business acumen to rescue them from it without a bailout. So he made sure nobody else sought the Baltimore market, leeched a sweetheart deal out of the city for a new stadium and then tried to explain to Cleveland with an even uglier turn of phrase than LeBron taking his talents to Miami: "I had no choice."

He did, of course. He could've waited. He could've sold to his friend Al Lerner. He busted out, and instead of doing what was honorable, Art Modell defaulted to selfish and landed on Baltimore's golden parachute a hero to those still scarred by Mayflower trucks.

The Ravens won the Super Bowl five years later and are run by Ozzie Newsome, whose autograph I still have from a Browns training camp when I was 6. They routinely destroyed the new Browns, who have been one of the worst franchises in the league since they returned as an expansion team in 1999.

Winning may change this, but this odd feeling still permeates the new Browns. They're a real NFL team. They play in a nice stadium. In the tradition of the old Browns, they make stupid personnel moves. And yet something just isn't right about them. It's like they're imposters, delivered by pity to placate Modell's conscience.

Maybe that's why I felt nothing when Art Modell died. If there's a word to describe the new Browns, it's soulless.

I was 15 years old when I wrote my first story. My father worked at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, and every Monday the newspaper ran a section of local teenagers' work. Cleveland's mayor at the time, Michael White, had negotiated a deal for the Browns to return by 1999. To a 15-year-old, someone who didn't understand big business and big money and corporations and greed, this was not good enough.

"There was a way the team – not only the name and colors – could have stayed where it belongs," I wrote, and I genuinely believed that. Naïveté and hope and youth were like drugs on which I couldn't stop tripping. I didn't want to believe this was happening. I couldn't understand how it did.

I vowed not to forget.

Only I did. Life took over. My parents moved. The bumper sticker and the SI cover didn't fit in the new house. LeBron left Cleveland, and I was mad, but not once did I think of Art Modell. He had sold the Ravens to a man named Steve Bisciotti in 2003. Modell kept 1 percent of the franchise.

Word filtered out late Wednesday that Modell was gravely ill. I called my dad. We had watched so many Browns games together, him yelling at the TV, me learning to do the same, him diagnosing defensive schemes and taking notes on his yellow legal pad for his radio show, me trying to understand what all of it meant. He never kicked the habit. Even though he lives thousands of miles from Cleveland, he still drives to a local sports bar and meets up with Browns fans every Sunday for what has turned into more of a weekly lament than a party.

He tries to cheer for the Browns, too, the same way he did for the team that debuted in 1946 and won eight championships. Instead, he sees this bastardized version and cannot reconcile it. Almost 20 years after one man stole Cleveland's soul, my father's fire still burns.

And when I told him Art Modell was dying, he didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

Link

My heart goes out to his family and his friends that loved him.

Now one thing I can not say is R.I.P. Art, until he feels the pain and heartache he caused every Browns fan I hope he has no peace. If there is a way for God to make him feel the emotions that each and every Browns fan felt, and he then realized just how much suffering his selfish choice caused and he was truly sorry, then and only then can I wish that he R.I.P.

J/C
Can the curse be over now?

j/c

Supposedly the Browns are going to try to do something in recognition of Modell before the game this Sunday. That will be interesting.

*Edit* I'm just glad that we're going to give Sportscenter and the media plenty of "Cleveland is a terrible place" fodder when 70,000 people are booing a dead guy.

There won't be 70,000 people booing.

There will be a handful of idiots booing. Most of the fans, myself included, will sit there and just ignore whatever it is they're doing.

But you're right. The media will use the handful of idiots booing as a way to bash Cleveland.

It would be better if just nobody went to their seat until after the observance was over.

*edit* and symbolically appropriate.

The key will be when they play it. If they do it right when the gates open, it's still pregame, but the stands will be empty. That's when I'd do it.

The NFL had 3 years of silence from Cleveland. The Browns want to show that they're behind the fans? Refuse and take whatever punishment comes with it.

Modell was an arrogant, greedy, liar, and horrible businessman, and I for one will not celebrate his life or death. For the NFL or anyone else to expect Cleveland Browns fans to pay our final respects to a man that very few of us respect, it's just wrong.

Quote:

---

I can never get over that man taking OUR team and moving them away. He may have legally owned the team but he didn't own the team.

My heart goes out to his family but as far as he's concerned I still hate him and will never forgive him for the rest of my life.

---

You hit my feeling exactly on this issue. In the now infamous words of President Obama, "You didn't build that!" The fans and the players - we're the ones that built the Browns brand, not Modell. Modell owned an NFL franchise, but he didn't own the Browns franchise.

He had the right to do anything he wanted with his team, but he didn't have the right to take the Browns from Cleveland, and I'm just glad the NFL saw it that way.

What I hate about Modell is that by moving the team and leaving Cleveland without football for 3 long years, he left the Browns brand in shambles. I don't blame him for the all poor football we've had to endure since the return, but he dug the whole and pushed us in. The past regimes and players have been unable to dig us back out. It all started with the move.

It's been 17 seasons since the Browns have hosted a home playoff game. 17 years! I can't wait until we finally get out of this hole!

Well, apparently the league has asked for a moment of silence or some appropriate recognition to all home teams so now the Browns are in a bind. If they do nothing the franchise takes a hit and has to explain why they did what they did. They'll either take a bullet for the fans and make up some story or throw us under the bus. But in the end, we would all know why they chose to do nothing and the city and the fans get thrown under the bus anyway. The NFL has given the national media a side show story now.

So other than a moment of silence which won't be silent, what can an appropriate response be? I can't see ANYTHING that works here.