Revising history: Art Modell

When I lived in Atlanta, I once met a young lady who worked in "Public Relations". One afternoon over a beer, she explained to me that her job was to get "placements". Over the course of the next hour, I came to understand effectively what that meant is that businesses who wanted favorable press, employed her PR firm and she worked on their behalf to get articles "placed" into news outlets such as magazines and newspapers. I suppose I was naive, but it quickly became clear to me that much of what we all read in the press is bullshit. For example, it is now obvious whenever I read an article that states how great some CEO of a company is that this "newsworthy" item is the product of two PR pros working to pump the massive ego of some overpaid prima donna, in hopes of selling more widgets.

A major reason why I love blogging is because professional journalists in the USA sold their soul to satan years ago (if any journalists are reading this, to hear Bill Hick's viewpoint on selling your soul to satan, please watch the below youtube video). Bloggers can tell the truth because they write for the fun of it. Today's American journalism feels a lot more like the Russian Politburo, except that cash buys newsprint in the USA, rather than the gift of vodka to a political official.

So,,, what is the point of this rant? Well the man who destroyed the Cleveland Browns, Art Modell, is trying to revise history in a last gasp effort to make the Football Hall of Fame in Canton. Now that makes me mad!!! Click here to read this revisionist trash from todays Baltimore Sun. You can bet your bottom dollar some PR jerk somewhere is behind this bit of "journalism"

Vintage Browns: 1965 NFL Championship

Perhaps a little known fact, the 1965 Browns came one game away from Super Bowl I.
That year there was no fumble or pass or "drive". Art Modell's Browns simply got their asses kicked by Vince Lombardi's Packers.

New College Free Agent signing: Martin Tevaseu DT

Earlier this week the Browns signed another college free agent lineman, Martin Tevasue of UNLV. His size and athleticism are interesting and as you will note in the video below, should the NFL decide to install baskets instead of goalposts in the endzone, young Mr. Tevasue brings to the Browns, the ability to dunk a football..

This signing is probably of little significance, as Tevasue likely won't make the team, but it does show that the Browns new management are hunting bargains by looking for free agent lineman who are big, athletic, but under-skilled football players.

As of today, none of the linemen signed by the Browns as free agents are uh.... good football players but they are all young, big and fast. At 22 years old, it really is a numbers game. One or more of these players might dramatically improve as a football player, and if that happens, the Browns will have struck gold. In the meantime, these players bring another advantage that Browns fans are quite conditioned to over the years. They come dirt cheap. We'll give the benefit of the doubt for the time being that the Holmgren era has the right motives in mind when they search for bargains, but 30 years of Art Modell understandably make us all sceptics.

Brown's history: Dino Hall

Working under Art Modell put enormous constraints on Brown's head coaches. The most imposing of those limits was that Browns coaches were almost certainly forced to cut players who had earned a position on the 45 man roster based on their play but whose salary was too high. The evidence of this is simply overwhelming.

Modell was cheap but he wasn't a fool. With the exception of Tom Skladany and Jack Gregory, Modell usually did not apply salary pressure to the most critical roster positions. Instead Modell likely forced coaches to make do with lesser talented players in those positions that were less visible but nontheless important. In particular backups were systematically diluted year after year to pad Modell's pockets. Modell's self imposed salary cap clearly contrasted with winning teams especially during the 1970's and it's the prime reason the Browns rarely made the playoffs in those years. One need only site the Steelers and recall that whenever an injury hit a key player, a very able backup was ready to stand in. I can recall the excellent Dirt Winston stepping up for Jack Lambert when Lambert was injured and the Steelers more than holding their own. Tony Dungy was a very good defensive backfield bench player and the Steelers defensive line was 6 deep with a great player like John Banaszak in reserve. This contrasts Modell's Browns and that lack of depth in 1978 and 1979 hurt the Browns as the season progressed and those inevitable injuries that every team suffers piled up. It's the only reason the Browns missed the playoffs those years.

As I study Brown's history, one coach who wears very well with time is Sam Rutigliano. The reason I admire Rutilgiano is that he was very creative in coming up with strategies to deal with the realities he confronted. One of those realities was Art Modell. Previous to Rutigliano in the 1970's, the coaches who toiled under Modell, when forced to cut superior players, stuck with conventional wisdom when selecting the players that Modell was in fact willing to pay for. Rutigliano on the other hand, bucked conventional wisdom in several cases. If you have to put a player on the roster at league minimum salary, why not pick a brilliant athlete who for some reason was not appreciated by others? Dino Hall was a perfect example. Hall was way too short and didn't weigh nearly enough, but he was a fantastic athlete and a great football player. Even at 5' 6", Hall made real contributions to the success of the Browns in that era.

I've often wondered what might have been the result had Rutigliano gone with this intuition a bit more often, especially on defense. In particular the 1979 Browns had an offense that was Super Bowl caliber but their defense was so full of holes that as the season wore on, they folded completely as did the Brown's playoff hopes. Perhaps a few undersized defenders who were great athletes might have patched enough holes to get the '79 Browns into the playoffs.

Why we love the Browns

In the 1990's, after Art Modell cut Bernie Kosar, I found myself questioning why I was a Browns fan when the owner of the team was a man whose values were the complete opposite of my own.

The fact today remains that when we honor the Cleveland Browns, we honor the legacy of it's founder, Hall of Famer and Ohioan Paul Brown. No matter how horrible a scar Art Modell left on the Browns, no matter the fact that we have doubts about the current leadership, nothing can stain the legacy of Paul Brown.

Loyalty: Bernie Kosar

There is a lot of negative talk about Brown's great Bernie Kosar lately as he has demonstrated himself to be a human being, not a God in the last few months. For Brown's fans, the only conclusion we can make is to express our solidarity with this truly great man and warrior. I like to talk about what makes an Ohioan, and of all the qualities we believe in loyalty tops the list. Nobody has been more loyal to the Browns and Cleveland fans than Bernie Kosar. What has he gotten in return for his loyalty? Art Modell cut Bernie Kosar to save money. "Friends" or better stated, hangers on, took advantage of Kosar's generosity but one thing is for sure. Kosar is a winner and in the game of life, it's only halftime. Bernie will come out on top.

Here is a video of Bernie leading the Dallas Cowboys on a touchdown drive in the 1993 NFC Championship game. After winning this game, the Cowboys went on to win the Super Bowl, giving Bernie the Super Bowl ring he could have never gotten under the incompetent ownership of Art Modell.

Greed, disloyalty and incompetence: Art Modell

Years from today, the day Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore will be viewed as a positive transitional moment in Cleveland sports history because Art Modell was a cancer that nearly destroyed everything we Ohioans stand for.

I will never forgive Art Modell for many things. His disloyalty and cold hearted GREED in cutting Ohioan Bernie Kosar was the most personal slap in the face. But beyond the fact that Art Modell is a person of low moral character, what was most disturbing about Modell was the 34 years of incompetence he wrought upon Cleveland and Northern Ohio.

Incompetence is the inability to perform. In Cleveland sports history, nobody personified this more than Art Modell who inherited the most dominant franchise in pro football history and proceeded to drive the team to the depths of ineptitude. For a concrete example of how Modell stained Ohio, today people around the world talk about Cleveland's lack of sporting success but they never seem to mention the primary cause of our misery, Art Modell. Had Modell simply left Paul Brown in charge and not interfered in team operations, it's a certainty the Browns would have played in several Super Bowls. If you feel this statement is not supported by facts, please consider that Paul Brown took the 1967 expansion team Cincinnati Bengals twice to the Super Bowl in 1980s. One can also make concrete examples of how Modell's incompetence in managing Cleveland Stadium had much to do with the Cleveland Indians losing so badly in the 70s and 80s. Modell singlehandedly made Cleveland sports into a modern day version of Pottersville, George Bailey's nightmare version of Bedford Falls.

Modell believes he was vindicated by the 2000 Super Bowl victory of the Baltimore Ravens but this victory was tainted by the fact that the players on that squad were paid for with a portion of the windfall profit realized on the backs of Maryland taxpayers. Modell was deeply stung by the critics who pointed out that in over 30 years in Cleveland, he never appeared in, nor won a Super Bowl, so instead of pocketing all of the Maryland taxpayer windfall profit, as his every instinct must have told him to do, he did in fact add depth of talent to the Baltimore team, something he never did in Cleveland. It's true that the top 20 players on the Browns were often excellent in the Modell era but look at the players that we had on the entire roster. Modell was notorious for cycling players off the team after two or three years and replacing them with less expensive rookies. It's only one example, but would Oscar Roan have helped the Browns make the playoffs in 1979 by serving as a very competent backup tight end to Ozzie Newsome? Yes of course, but in 1979 Roan was replaced by Curtis Weathers. Weathers was a decent player but was nowhere near the player Roan was, he did however cost less than Oscar Roan. This case, taken in isolation had very little impact, but if you study closely the Browns rosters in the Modell era, it's a story that is repeated over and over and over. Talent reduction to generate salary reduction in those players that make up the last 25 roster positions was Modell's standard operating practice. The Browns failure to appear in a Super Bowl was systematic because Modell's player personnel policy forced the head coach to NOT select the best 45 players to fill his roster. Modell knew he had to pay star players to sell those season tickets so we had some great players over the years but the downgrading of talent on the rest of the team was as systematic as the teams lack of Super Bowl success.

And when Modell got lucky and a once in a generation playmaker talent like Bernie Kosar wanted to work for him due to his Ohio loyalties, the Browns came painfully close to a Super Bowl. It's easy to blame John Elway or Ernest Byner for those AFC Championship game losses, but surely Kosar would have led the Browns past the Bronco's at least one time, had Modell overcome his greed and incompetence and put just a few more resources into those teams. For starters, how much money did Modell save hiring Marty Schottenheimer as coach?

Today there are those who believe that Modell should be in the NFL Hall of Fame. The only valid reason is that Modell's contribution to the negotiation of television rights in the 1970s and 1980s helped enrich the very select group of NFL owners beyond their wildest dreams. Sorry Art, but the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton honors success and innovation on the field of play, and true success is something Modell knows nothing about. Fortunately in 2010, Modell has not made the list of finalists for induction into the Hall of Fame and if the Canton Hall is to retain it's credibility, he must NEVER enter. For the full story of Modell's betrayal of Cleveland click on this link to another fantastic Browns blog, Dawgs by Nature