Art Modell is dead

Benevolent One

Benevolent One

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Art Modell, the former owner of the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens, passed away overnight. I really hate subjects like this. There are very few people who I hold as much contempt for as Art Modell. At the same time, speaking ill of the dead just seems unseemly at the least.

Certainly, he did a lot of good things in his life. He was the last owner to win a championship in major Cleveland sports. As pathetic as that is, the 1964 Browns won the last title in Cleveland. He was also very instrumental in the creation of Monday Night Football and in much of the NFL's move into television. ESPN is full of a lot of his accomplishments today. Of course, that is only one part of the story.

He also moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore in 1995. He was such a poor businessman that he was in so much debt (reportedly over $100 million at the time) that he pretty much had to either sell the team to someone who would keep the team here or take a ton of money from Baltimore and rip the hearts out of the city of Cleveland. He chose to screw everybody here over. How he managed to lose a ton of money with one the most popular teams in all of sports and with ownership of a huge stadium, is beyond me.

My heart goes out to his family, but I can not and will not mourn the man.
 
I don't like to speak ill of the dead but BO is speaking as a Brown's fan and what he says is true. Few in Cleveland will be attending his funeral. Reminds me of Carroll Rosenbloom. I was big Colts fan.
 
As a Pittsburgh fan, I used to love the rivalry between the Steelers and the Clowns...err...Browns. No matter who won, or who had the better record, it was always a great game. I, too, disliked the move from Cleveland to Baltimore, but, alas, it happened. Art Modell, RIP.
 
In what I thought was a great move, David Modell, Art's youngest son, called Browns' team president Mike Holmgren on Saturday and asked the team to not even mention his father's passing during Sunday's pregame as the Browns were planning to do. They weren't going to ask the fans to observe a moment of silence because they knew that it wouldn't go over very well and end up making the entire city look bad. They had simply been planning to mention it during the pregame. David didn't want his father to face even more criticism than he already has so he asked them not to do anything at all. That was a smart and classy move on his part. I've kind of had a soft spot for David ever since his dad called him "honey" when calling him to the platform in a press conference. That had to be pretty embarassing for a grown man to face.
 
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