Since his passing last week I've thought a great deal about former Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell. Mostly because he moved his iconic team from Cleveland to Baltimore I've had difficulty respecting the man. His firing of both Paul Brown and Bill Belichick only strengthened that disrespect. You'd think with all that going against him it would be easy to cast his impact on the NFL aside. It should be easy to view Art Modell as an overrated NFL figure. Some recent events have forced me to view some of his sins differently.
I've started to view the man differently. The NFL that we know today would be far different if not for the impact of Art Modell. The explosion of the NFL on the television scene would not be the same if not for Modell. Since the early '60s the league's financial backbone has been its television contracts. As commissioner, Pete Rozelle has always gotten much of the credit for these advances but it was always with Modell's guidance. Modell's experience was in television and advertising. He knew people. He knew how it all worked. Monday Night Football was his baby. Television has made football in the last fifty years. Art Modell was behind all of that.
Art Modell was a joker. He was also honest. More than most successful businessmen. In a league filled with assholes and egos among the ownership group Modell brought something a little lighter. When things got tense in meetings he could make it lighter. It's hard to get a bunch of rich guys to agree on anything. Modell's humor and honesty must have helped. If not the decision making certainly the atmosphere. Despite his football inexperience he carried some weight. Being tight with Pete Rozelle certainly helped that.
Personally, his firings of Paul Brown and Bill Belichick were the most difficult to get past in judging Art Modell. On the surface they seem to be the dumbest football decisions ever made. Belichick and Brown are right there with Vince Lombardi and Bill Walsh as the greatest coaches to walk an NFL sideline. When you look past the surface the firings do make some sense. Paul Brown was too powerful in Cleveland. There was no way a working relationship between Brown and Modell was ever going to succeed. Modell liked being around the players while Brown was always kept his distance. Modell had the ear of the players and Brown was always suspicious. The team was on the verge of exploding. Brown's rules and ways were becoming too restricting at a time when players were looking for more freedoms. Modell likely saw no other choice but to fire Paul Brown. That decision gains traction when a more relaxed Blanton Collier takes that fading Browns to a title a couple of years later. The Belichick firing is bashed more for what the coach did in his second head coaching gig. Prior to that last lost season it looked like Belichick and his incredible coaching staff were starting to get something going in Cleveland. The Browns were 5-11 in that last season but that season was a mess. Modell's intentions of moving to Baltimore had been revealed during that season. Everything fell apart from there. Few thought twice of a novice Belichick being fired after a 5-11 season. Most see the move as foolish now but few saw it as foolish then. I also imagine that Modell wanted to start with a clean slate in Baltimore.
The move. This is viewed by nearly everyone, especially those in Cleveland, as Art Modell's greatest sin. Modell probably even saw it the same. My guess is that it weighed heavily on the man ever since. After seeing the ridiculous shit that the Minnesota Vikings owners, the Wilf family, have had to plow through to get a new stadium I can better understand the frustration that forced Art Modell's decision. The Vikings could not survive in this NFL in Minnesota without a new stadium. Modell couldn't survive in Cleveland in the mid '90s without a new stadium. The Vikings stadium situation got so bad that I wouldn't have blamed the Wilfs for leaving town if it had come to that. They had been fighting for a new stadium since they bought the team in 2005. I would have blamed the idiot politicians for a Vikings move before I'd even think of blaming the Wilfs. Seeing and hearing some of the politicians in Minnesota through the whole stadium ordeal was mind numbing. It's a miracle that anything ever gets done. My guess is that this mess that we call the political process is the same everywhere. Including Cleveland in the '90s. The people of Cleveland should have blamed the decision makers among them. They sure coughed up the money and the interest after Modell left town probably never thinking that he would. It ended up costing Cleveland far more for the new team than it would have to keep the Browns in the first place. One thing that many people don't seem to realize is that Art Modell was not a wealthy man. He had some money but he knew people that had more. As he famously said. Most NFL team owners, especially those that we see now, made a ton of money elsewhere and then bought a team. Modell bought the Browns with a bunch of money from his friends. He was initially only the face of the ownership group but he gradually gained more control of the team. He never had that fantastic pot of money. He never had the resources of Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft or even the Wilfs. Modell had to take out a 5 million dollar loan to pay free agent receiver Andre Rison's signing bonus in Cleveland. Modell would have had to file for bankruptcy if the team had stayed in Cleveland. He didn't choose to leave. He had to leave. Moving the Cleveland Browns was devastating to many, many people. Including Art Modell. I wish that Cleveland could forgive him.
RIP Art Modell
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