Looking back on Bill

The Gipper

@canton-dawg said:

Then we have ESPN spewing this annual nonsense once again. . .

And technically I don’t think it was the Browns that fired Bill Belichick. It would’ve been the Baltimore franchise not the Cleveland franchise because he was still under that contract to Mod ell that got assigned to the new franchise

Orion

@the-gipper said:

Who moved away. The Browns never moved never ever.

Technicalities mean nothing.

hoorta

@orion said:

Technicalities mean nothing.

To guys like Trollie, who still claim the Ravens are the Browns... and Modell will still go down in history as the owner firing two HOF coaches...

The Gipper

@orion said:

Technicalities mean nothing.

Except of course you win or lose On technicalities

Canton Dawg

@the-gipper said:

And technically I don’t think it was the Browns that fired Bill Belichick. It would’ve been the Baltimore franchise not the Cleveland franchise because he was still under that contract to Mod ell that got assigned to the new franchise

Yep, the Browns franchise went away on February 9th, and 6 days later Baltimore fired him.

Dutch Oven

@the-gipper said:

Who moved away. The Browns never moved never ever.

Man, you've been extra Gipperish this week.

Yes, the Browns moved.

Dutch Oven

@hoorta said:

To guys like Trollie, who still claim the Ravens are the Browns... and Modell will still go down in history as the owner firing two HOF coaches...

Here's the truth that Browns fans don't want to hear:

Modell was right to fire both.

There are quite a few Browns players on record that say the Browns would not have won the 1964 NFL Title with Paul Brown as head coach. And as great of a head coach Paul Brown was, Blanton Collier had the EXACT SAME WIN PERCENTAGE as head coach as Brown for the NFL Browns. (The AAFC years push Brown's win % way up).

And Belichick himself said that he needed to be fired from the Browns/Ravens job if he ever wanted to become the head coach he is now.

nickers

@westside-steve said:

https://amp.si.com/nfl/2019/02/15/bill-belichick-firing-cleveland-browns-baltimore-ravens-art-modell-bernie-kosar#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s

I read the piece... Bill was such an asshole while he was here... I remember vividly how I wanted to squeeze his throat and squeeze the living fuck out of his life!... I hate that mother fucker... call me bitter I guess....

EDIT: Seeing 'Metcalf up the middle' to no avail just infuriated me... It never worked... Then there was Steve Crosby.. a real piece of offensive genius..Complete buffoon... LOL!!

The Gipper

@dutch-oven said:

Man, you've been extra Gipperish this week.

Yes, the Browns moved.

How much money you want to bet

Westside Steve

One of the first things Bill did after taking control of the Browns what is the cut back on the Press perks. Free food hanging out on the team bus or airplane etc etc. So you piss off sportswriters community and guess what happens to your coverage?

WSS

The Gipper

@westside-steve said:

One of the first things Bill did after taking control of the Browns what is the cut back on the Press perks. Free food hanging out on the team bus or airplane etc etc. So you piss off sportswriters community and guess what happens to your coverage?

WSS

So in other words he was a many and varied asshole

Westside Steve

@the-gipper said:

So in other words he was a many and varied asshole

Bernie Kosar was once a fine quarterback.

So was Drew Bledsoe.

WSS

Dutch Oven

@the-gipper said:

How much money you want to bet

Weird how every player on the 1995 Browns roster and every coach on the 1995 Browns were not in Cleveland for the 1996 NFL season.

Kvoethe

This is like that thread looking back at the draft....

Orion

@dutch-oven said:

Weird how every player on the 1995 Browns roster and every coach on the 1995 Browns were not in Cleveland for the 1996 NFL season.

......and then there are those that think the earth is flat....and we never landed on the moon....and the new Ravens were 'clones' of the Browns organization, while the originals were zapped into non existence by gamma rays. - The reality is, the Browns moved to Baltimore, and subsequently were told to paint themselves purple and call themselves something other than the Browns. (ok, I lied. they weren't told to paint themselves purple...they chose to paint themselves purple) - Then we got a stadium, so we could have a team, and so we could select all special teamers in the plan B expansion draft. We came back into the league as dummies and remained that way until a blind squirrel finally found John Dorsey.

The Gipper

@dutch-oven said:

Weird how every player on the 1995 Browns roster and every coach on the 1995 Browns were not in Cleveland for the 1996 NFL season.

I didn’t think I would have to educate someone like you like you were stupid Steeler fan. Do I really have to after 25 years now educate our own people. Those players had their contracts assigned to the new Baltimore franchise. The Cleveland franchise never left the Cleveland Browns never left. Now you owe me lunch at Al’s

D Bone

@dutch-oven said:

Man, you've been extra Gipperish this week.

Yes, the Browns moved.

Don't even try..... He'll argue what the definition of is is.

hoorta

@dutch-oven said:

Weird how every player on the 1995 Browns roster and every coach on the 1995 Browns were not in Cleveland for the 1996 NFL season.

this time, I'll defend Gipper. as of X date- those players & coaches ceased to be "Browns".

@d-bone said:

Don't even try..... He'll argue what the definition of is is.

It's FYI the difference between "players" and "franchise". The players moved to Baltimore, the Browns franchise did not. The Ravens were an expansion franchise, filled with former Browns players. If you need any more proof, go look it up on the HOF website... The 1999 Browns were the original Browns franchise, filled with expansion players. Got it? There's a f**king huge difference...

If you still don't understand the difference, try to get this through your thick heads. When Irsay pulled the Colts out of Baltimore- everything went with them- including the records and colors. Johnny Unitas' records now reside in Indy. Where are the Browns colors and records? You say in Cleveland? Congrats... Because it's the same franchise.

Hell's bells, we had to deal with Balitmoron trolls for 10 years with this crap, and now Cleveland fans still swallow uninformed media BS. It's the same as saying that Deshone Kizer was a former Brown, now he's a Green Bay Packer. Sheeze......

Nero

If a franchise at any particular moment is not defined by its players, the heck if I know what a franchise is.

We get that the Browns history, name, etc did not move from Cleveland, but the whole team moved, so it should be reasonable to say that there was a "move".

Dutch Oven

@nero said:

If a franchise at any particular moment is not defined by its players, the heck if I know what a franchise is.

We get that the Browns history, name, etc did not move from Cleveland, but the whole team moved, so it should be reasonable to say that there was a "move".

It's just silly.

A team full of players, coaches, office personnel, trainers were being rooted on by myself, hoorta and Gipper in 1995 in Cleveland.

The next season, I, hoorta and Gipper WOULD HAVE been rooting for many of the same people but strangely, Cleveland Stadium was empty on Sundays. The team we would have been rooting for was now playing their home games in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

Now, none of their feats in '96 had any impact on the records of the Cleveland Browns, but lets just stop pretending that the team didn't move, regardless of technical semantics. Steve Everett didn't get fined by the NFL because he wore a CLEVELAND BROWNS bandanna on game days in 1996 for no reason.