There are some sad stories in sports, but no fan base has been punished as much in the league as the Cleveland Bears, now we are 20 years into “The Move” and the Browns eternal reconstruction continues.
The Cleveland Browns, the team from Ohio, is one of the winners in NFL history and probably the most popular team before the merger in 1970. Cradle of great sporting legends like Otto Graham, Paul Brown and the one considered by many as the best player in history, Jim Brown. This March will mark 20 years since Art Modell, former owner of the Browns and Ravens, took with him a historic franchise and well supported by their fans.
During the 80’s, the Browns could never reach the big Sunday, thanks to bad luck and John Elway, in games that even have his own name to be remembered painfully, “Red Right 88”, “The Drive”, “The fumble ” and a third championship game against the Broncos in 1990. the Browns could never get to the Super Bowl, but they were an animator team for their fans, nothing to do with the current team that took its name in 1999.
In 1995, during the season, Art Modell announced that the franchise would move to Baltimore, leaving an entire city stunned and devastating the hopes of a team that was favored to reach the Super Bowl that season, the Browns led by Bill Belichick, the current Head Coach for the New England Patriots finished with a 5-11 and saying goodbye to a city that once became synonymous with excellence.
But the story does not end in the famous “The Move”, as it is now known that time when the team changed cities, 20 years of cruel and bitter memories for the city of Cleveland and its fans stories. The first was Ozzie Newsome, sometime later the star of the team and executive staff in Bill Belichick era. Newsome followed Modell to the new franchise, the Baltimore Ravens, joining the staff in the 1996 Draft, with an extra first round that Belichick had negotiated in 95, would pick a Ray Lewis, who would become the pillar of the franchise and the very next member of the Hall of Fame.
In 2000, the Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV, which after a drought of 34 years, Art Modell was again lifting a trophy in his franchise, only in another city and with another team, just five seasons after leaving Cleveland.
A little earlier in the Draft of that season, the Cleveland Browns picked in the sixth round the QB Spergon Wynn, another victim of the famous list of failed QBs in Cleveland, 17 picks later, the New England Patriots, led by Bill Belichick chose Tom Brady a seed that would change the dynamic immensely.
Already in 2001 supplemented by Brady, Belichick would win his first Super Bowl, six years after being fired by Art Modell, starting a dynasty with the Patriots and turning them into the most winning franchise of the new millennium.
The flight of talent that Belichick’s staff had in ’95 has been very painful in retrospect; Ozzie Newsome current Baltimore Ravens GM, Scott Pioli former Chiefs GM, Mike Tannenbaum former Jets GM, Thomas Dimitroff GM of the Atlanta Falcons. Among the field minds we find Jim Schwartz, former Lions coach and current defensive coordinator in Philadelphia, Eric Mangini, former coach of Browns and Jets and finally Nick Saban, who in 2003 won his first collegiate title with LSU and since then he has won four championships with the university of Alabama, one of the most important potentials of the NFL.
In 1999 the franchise returned to the NFL, the Browns were again the Cleveland team and despite being a new franchise in terms of executive staff and in the field, they inherited all the illustrious history of their ancestors.
From then until the end of the 2015 season, the team has had three owners; Al Lerner, Randy Lerner and Jimmy Haslam. They have also gone through seven GMs in the franchise; Dwight Clark, Butch Davis, Phil Savage, George Kokinis, Tom Heckert, Michael Lombardi and Ray Farmer. In addition to also having eight Head Coaches; Chris Palmer, Butch Davis, Terry Robiskie, Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Pat Shurmur, Rob Chudzinski and Mike Pettine.
The painful list of QBs in their attempts to reconstruct the team is even worse, with twenty four quarterbacks that have gone through more pain than glory; Tim Couch, Ty Detmer, Doug Pederson, Spergon Wynn, Kelly Holcomb, Jeff Garcia, Luke McCown, Trent Dilfer, Charlie Frye, Derek Anderson, Ken Dorsey, Brady Quinn, Bruce Gradkowski, Colt McCoy, Jake Delhomme, Seneca Wallace, Brandon Weeden Thaddeus Lewis, Jason Campbell, Brian Hoyer, Johnny Manziel, Connor Shaw, Josh McCown and Austin Davis.
In the same period of time, the New England Patriots have had one owner, Robert Kraft, only 2 Head Coaches Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick, and only three quarterbacks Drew Bledsoe, Tom Brady and Matt Cassel, and incredible difference in consistency for a franchise.
Today the Browns are once again in the reconstruction process after the clear failure with Johnny Manziel, Jimmy Haslam brings a staff that is expected to be the chosen one (as all the others before him), Sashi Brown, the Harvard lawyer, Paul DePodesta, the baseball Moneyball and Hue Jackson, the former Bengals offensive coordinator, these are the men who will attempt to bring the old glories once again to the city of Cleveland.
For now the process looks uncertain, Alex Mack, Mitchell Schwartz, Tashaun Gipson Travis Benjamin and Johnny Manziel have left the team in free agency. The Browns will aim all their cards into a two-year process in this draft have the second overall pick and nine more in later rounds for 2017 they are likely to have a couple of compensatory picks, thanks to the players who have recently left the franchise, so they might have about nine decent picks.
20 years after The Move, and while the factory of sadness follows astray, the original Browns (Ravens) have won a couple of Super Bowls, and have become one of the best franchises in the NFL and look like a contender team every single year. Bill Belichick has become one of the best coaches in the history and threatens to exceed the four NFL championships the Browns had accomplished, in just 20 years.
For better or worse this season will start another reconstruction with an interesting project at hand to right the ship after 20 years, the question is, Can they do it? We do not know. What is certain is the franchise cannot do any worse.
