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Before the Ravens were the Ravens, they were the Browns. But for a while, they were nothing, after Art Modell agreed to leave the Browns in Cleveland and moved a team with no name to Baltimore.

As noted by Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com, the name became official as the result of a fan vote on this day in 1996.

It was a landslide in the telephone poll (how quaint) conducted by the Baltimore Sun, with more than 21,000 votes being cast for the bird that was the centerpiece of Edgar Allen Poe’s epic poem, with fewer than 6,000 each lodged for the Americans and the Marauders.

Poe, who wasn’t a native of Baltimore, moved there in 1831 and died there 18 years later, at the age of 40.

Per Hensley, Modell actually offered $5 million to Jim Irsay for the Colts name. Irsay apparently wanted even more cash than that to carry around in his car, demanding something in the range of $25 million to $50 million.

Hall of Famer John Unitas didn’t like the name. “I don’t think it has any association with football,” said Unitas, who wanted Mustangs to be the name.

I would have gone with Rhinos, but no one asked me what I thought. In part because I was still four years away from intruding on the business of covering the NFL.

Far more significant to the franchise was what happened a month later, when the Baltimore NFL franchise used a pair of first-round picks to acquire tackle Jonathan Ogden and linebacker Ray Lewis.