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After watching the presidential debates (what a joke that was), I watched A Football Life Cleveland 95 (in which I DVRd) which featured the Browns and what was going on in 95 when the team announced the move! All I have to say is (sigh) what could have been? With the likes of Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz, Ozzie Newsome... The team was poised to take it to the next step!
So to all of those places like Baltimore, New England, and any other football programs such as Iowa, and Alabama on the college level, that have reaped the benefits of success at the expense of Cleveland and it's loyal fans who now have to put up with the current crap of constant losing, because we had to start from scratch....
YOU'RE WELCOME!
Signed Cleveland Browns fans!
Oh... and Browns fans to add fuel to the fire, prior to watching this, yesterday afternoon Bernie Kosar was being interviewed by a local sports station. You all remember when it was announced that the ownership group was to consist of AL Lerner, Carmen Policy, along with Bernie being a part of the organization. Well, straight from the horses mouth, no lie... Bernie Kosar flat out said that the first coach that he recommended to coach the new Cleveland Browns was none other than Bill Bellichick the very coach that cut him! Carmen Policy told Bernie "no way," and "you can't like him because he cut you!" WTF??? After that the Browns organization further distanced itself from Kosar. If you all ever wondered why they dangled Bernie in front of us as part of the new ownership group, and then they changed course.... well... there you have it, as to why. Some of you may or may not know that in an interview with Bernie on another sports talk show years ago, he had said that Bill Bellichick called him and apologized for the way things went down! Now tell me if that doesn't p*** off any other Browns fans??? Even despite the move to Baltimore, and starting from scratch that move of hiring Bellichick to coach the new Browns could have very well changed the course of history of Cleveland Browns football over the past 13 seasons! Bernie had it right! Instead Policy elected to hire Chris Palmer!
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by no1brownsfan
After watching the presidential debates (what a joke that was), I watched A Football Life Cleveland 95 (in which I DVRd) which featured the Browns and what was going on in 95 when the team announced the move! All I have to say is (sigh) what could have been? With the likes of Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz, Ozzie Newsome... The team was poised to take it to the next step!
So to all of those places like Baltimore, New England, and any other football programs such as Iowa, and Alabama on the college level, that have reaped the benefits of success at the expense of Cleveland and it's loyal fans who now have to put up with the current crap of constant losing, because we had to start from scratch....
YOU'RE WELCOME!
Signed Cleveland Browns fans!
Oh... and Browns fans to add fuel to the fire, prior to watching this, yesterday afternoon Bernie Kosar was being interviewed by a local sports station. You all remember when it was announced that the ownership group was to consist of AL Lerner, Carmen Policy, along with Bernie being a part of the organization. Well, straight from the horses mouth, no lie... Bernie Kosar flat out said that the first coach that he recommended to coach the new Cleveland Browns was none other than Bill Bellichick the very coach that cut him! Carmen Policy told Bernie "no way," and "you can't like him because he cut you!" WTF??? After that the Browns organization further distanced itself from Kosar. If you all ever wondered why they dangled Bernie in front of us as part of the new ownership group, and then they changed course.... well... there you have it, as to why. Some of you may or may not know that in an interview with Bernie on another sports talk show years ago, he had said that Bill Bellichick called him and apologized for the way things went down! Now tell me if that doesn't p*** off any other Browns fans??? Even despite the move to Baltimore, and starting from scratch that move of hiring Bellichick to coach the new Browns could have very well changed the course of history of Cleveland Browns football over the past 13 seasons! Bernie had it right! Instead Policy elected to hire Chris Palmer!
I forgot about the show. I'll have to see when the next showing is. I've always wanted to see what all went into that move.
I forgot about the show. I'll have to see when the next showing is. I've always wanted to see what all went into that move.
As a Browns fan and a native North East Ohioan it brought back a lot of painful memories of the move! I was at the last game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium against the Bengals, and it truly felt like a funeral. And yes, I did get a seat.
It frustrates me, because having seen that, and the people that surrounded Bellichick, while we're currently stuck watching a bunch of players masquerading as the Cleveland Browns is like a punch in the gut! I just hope this new owner comes in and brings a winning attitude to this organization. I can't imagine someone spending 1 billion dollars on the team, and not do anything to improve it.
As for the move. Yeah a lot of it was in fact Art Modell's fault, and being a p*** poor businessman. The city of Cleveland also deserves a bit of the blame. In the end, it was the fans who got the shaft! Then again it always is. Now if Modell was so broke, he could have sold the team to Lerner, and rode off into the sunset, and may not have been as reviled in Cleveland as he is to this day. He didn't want to do that because he wanted to keep the team in his family. Ummm, yeah, how did that work out? Other than retaining a 1% share, he lost it anyway.
Speaking of the "A Football Life" one hour special, NFL films is coming out with a dvd set of all the one hour bios they did last year. Not sure what the cost is, the NFL Channel didn't say, but I'm pretty sure Amazon.com probably is already distributing it.
A couple observations here;
As always NFL Films does first rate work, and this one hour bio is just the latest example.
I wished they would have shown a few more reactions from some of Cleveland's past. I remember ESPN asking for reactions from a number of older Cleveland Brown players; players from their teams from the 80's like Hanford Dixon, Brian Brennan, Mike Johnson, and Bob Golic. And also players from way back.
And you don't get players much further back in the Browns storied history and having one player tied into that history from one player who was there for the Browns first NFL championship in 1946 to their last NFL championship in 1964. He played for Cleveland for 21 years and was/is one of my favorite old school NFL guys-Lou Groza. It was galling to all Brown fans to watch this thing go down the way it did but all the more galling to players like Groza, Otto Graham, Gene Hickerson, Leroy Kelly, (all HOFers BTW) and many others. Groza just blew up in that interview. Just blew up. I don't blame him.
Was Cleveland selling out Municipal Stadium in their last few years? No. But they were still pulling in 65,000 to 75,000 fans for games in their last few years (with maybe 4 or 5 games in those three years being an exception) and I have a fact book to prove it. But Belichick had to rebuild the club. In his 2nd and 3rd year he was 7-9, and 11-5 in 1994. Take a look at the L.A. Rams, the L.A. Raiders, the Houston Oilers, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Baltimore Colts. With those clubs in those last couple years the fans essentially quit coming.
Speaking of the "A Football Life" one hour special, NFL films is coming out with a dvd set of all the one hour bios they did last year. Not sure what the cost is, the NFL Channel didn't say, but I'm pretty sure Amazon.com probably is already distributing it.
A couple observations here;
As always NFL Films does first rate work, and this one hour bio is just the latest example.
I wished they would have shown a few more reactions from some of Cleveland's past. I remember ESPN asking for reactions from a number of older Cleveland Brown players; players from their teams from the 80's like Hanford Dixon, Brian Brennan, Mike Johnson, and Bob Golic. And also players from way back.
And you don't get players much further back in the Browns storied history and having one player tied into that history from one player who was there for the Browns first NFL championship in 1946 to their last NFL championship in 1964. He played for Cleveland for 21 years and was/is one of my favorite old school NFL guys-Lou Groza. It was galling to all Brown fans to watch this thing go down the way it did but all the more galling to players like Groza, Otto Graham, Gene Hickerson, Leroy Kelly, (all HOFers BTW) and many others. Groza just blew up in that interview. Just blew up. I don't blame him.
Was Cleveland selling out Municipal Stadium in their last few years? No. But they were still pulling in 65,000 to 75,000 fans for games in their last few years (with maybe 4 or 5 games in those three years being an exception) and I have a fact book to prove it. But Belichick had to rebuild the club. In his 2nd and 3rd year he was 7-9, and 11-5 in 1994. Take a look at the L.A. Rams, the L.A. Raiders, the Houston Oilers, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Baltimore Colts. With those clubs in those last couple years the fans essentially quit coming.
The Cleveland fans didn't.
Spot on with your last statement DOUBLE H! 65,000 was about the average capacity for other NFL stadiums back then. 75,000 was on the larger end for capacity. The old municipal stadium had a seating capacity over 82,000. The Browns were by no means struggling financially by lack of fan support! Not when you also had Browns Backers, which is largest organized fan group in all of professional sports! There are Backers clubs in almost all 50 states, and several around the world!
I watched it and find out things I never knew like
1. The current Lions coach being on the Browns coaching staff
2. Eric Mangini being a young coach on the Browns coaching staff
3. The Browns actually having a good season and making the playoffs in 1994
I'm so used to the Browns losing that I often forget they have made the playoffs in certain seasons.
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With the likes of Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz, Ozzie Newsome...
