“Who are you watching?” It was a Thursday night in September, and my wife seemed a little surprised there was an NFL game on TV. Looking up from the couch, I told her it was Pittsburgh at Baltimore.

“Ohhhh. Your favorite teams.”

I was about to gently remind her that I dislike no teams as much as these two (“Yeah, hun—wanna help me root for injuries?”). Instead, I decided to take the ribbing. Her point was valid—I do pay attention to both of these teams. But come on: when I watch the Baltimore Ravens play football, I am certainly not playing the part of the pining, forlorn ex-boyfriend. So what if this team was stolen from us Browns fans? From a region of the country that cared, and supported the franchise for decades?

So what if the Ravens have gone on to win two Super Bowls, while Cleveland has been waiting for a title of any kind for fifty years?

So what if this Steelers-Ravens rivalry—one that is considered among the fiercest and best in the NFL—was also stolen from us?

And so what if the expansion Browns have stumbled through a wilderness of horrible seasons for a generation? Once a regional team, its fan base has shrunk along with its geographic reach. Eastern Ohio bandwagoners like the Steelers, southern Ohio can’t get games on broadcast radio anymore, and the division rival Cincinnati Bengals no longer even promote Browns games in their ticket advertising like they used to.

Not to mention the curb stomping the Ravens often administers to the Browns when they play each other. Or the acclaimed general manager of Baltimore, an NFL Hall of Famer who played for the Browns and whose draft record is virtually unsurpassed by anyone. And who has a photo of himself in his office, from his playing days, with his Browns uniform airbrushed to look like a Ravens uniform. Allegedly.

So what if the Ravens have gone on to win two Super Bowls, while Cleveland has been waiting for a title of any kind for fifty years?

Most Browns fans carry a list of memories, truths and truisms, when it comes to the ‘old Browns.’ Here are some of mine (don’t worry, it’s not all off-the-field stuff):

When the move was finally announced, some of the sports media were with us fans; some were not. During the fateful 1995 season, Bob Costas blamed any predicament owner Art Modell was in on his own mismanagement. Fellow NBC announcer Mike Ditka called Modell “greedy.” Mike Lupica chastised Modell for moving out of the “best neighborhood” in the NFL. On the other hand, I very clearly recall Mike Tirico on the afternoon sports radio show “The Fabulous Sports Babe.” Tirico’s take was that if the Browns were moving, Cleveland obviously was culpable in some way.

Then there was Brent Musberger. It was November, 1995. The Cleveland Browns’ move to Baltimore had just been announced. It was the main thing everyone was talking about. The Browns were in Pittsburgh, to take on the Steelers on Monday night. The route from Cleveland to Three Rivers was populated with demonstrating Browns fans and supporters. Steelers fans actually wore orange armbands to the game, in support of their arch rivals. Amidst this backdrop of supercharged outrage, the Cleveland Browns came out and laid an egg in the first half. Browns fans waited in anticipation for the halftime show: would that day’s demonstration be publicized? Would Art Modell be held accountable for his unthinkable act of betrayal? The television screen faded in to a close up of Brent Musberger. He began… to gush over Kordell Stewart, Pittsburgh’s multipurpose threat known as “Slash” (quarterback-slash-punt returner-slash-wide receiver…). That was it. Just a fluff piece on a ‘feel-good’ story involving the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Browns got crushed, 20-3. That was not a good night.

Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and Buffalo Bills’ owner Ralph Wilson were the only NFL owners to side with Cleveland Browns fans, on principle. Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders and Georgia Frontiere of the St. Louis Rams abstained from the owners’ vote (each had just moved their franchises, from Los Angeles). Washington Redskins’ Jack Kent Cooke lobbied against Art Modell’s move out of Cleveland, but his motives were perhaps a bit selfish. Cooke wanted the Baltimore/Washington television market all to himself. He actually was attempting to build a stadium for the Redskins in Laurel, Maryland (that initiative ended up falling through). Dan Rooney had Cleveland fans’ back.

1995, the year Art Modell and the State of Maryland announced the move of the Cleveland Browns to Maryland, was actually an expansion year for the NFL. While Charlotte and Jacksonville were granted teams, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue convinced NFL owners to pass over Baltimore. Why didn’t Baltimore get a team in 1995? It was expected to be able to present the most attractive financial package to the league. Baltimore actually had three potential ownership groups in play. One was led by Browns minority owner, and future expansion owner, Al Lerner. Also in the mix were St. Louis and Memphis.

Tagliabue, NFL president Neil Austrian, and vice president in charge of operations Roger Goodell all lobbied against Baltimore. Tagliabue propped up Jacksonville’s bid, and they were a surprise winner. Art Modell’s vote was against expansion into Baltimore. It seems clear that NFL owners found it extremely useful for there to be viable cities without a franchise. Soon, franchises such as those in Seattle, Cincinnati, Tampa and Arizona were able to threaten to move to Cleveland if they didn’t receive a friendly deal. They did, and Cleveland’s open wound proved highly valuable to those NFL owners.

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To him, selling the franchise was out of the question.

, in my mind at least—because people forget: Because of his lack of financial foresight, and due to a lack of competent management, he was unable to afford his NFL team in Cleveland. To him, selling the franchise was out of the question. So, he moved a civic treasure to a city against which he’d voted for expansion, two years earlier. The deal he received was for an unprecedented, rent-free, 30-year contract at a publicly funded stadium, including all parking and concession income, plus half the gate receipts of any event staged there. To that, he added seat licenses (and regular prices for exhibition games, of course). He sold the name of the stadium to a commercial enterprise and collected close to $100 million for that.

Despite the incredible financial reset Modell had received in moving the Browns, he was still broke. The NFL soon directed him to sell the Baltimore Ravens (not sure where they were on that issue, in 1995). In 2000, he sold 49% of the team to Steve Bisciotti, along with an option to buy the remaining 51%. Bisciotti did just that, in 2004.

In 2012, we learned that Modell’s favorite complaint- that no decision-makers in Cleveland had approached him about a new stadium- was untrue. He had been consulted about a stadium as a part of a possible Gateway project, before it took shape. He turned it down. (This is not to defend anyone in the Cleveland political world. I know better than that.)

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The Browns swept the Ravens in 2001. In Cleveland, the Browns’ defense led the way over the defending Super Bowl champions, along with quarterback Tim Couch’s arm and James Jackson’s running. Ravens quarterback (and Cleveland St. Joseph alum) Elvis Grbac was hounded and harassed, finally giving way to backup Randall Cunningham. Three weeks later, the Browns won in Baltimore. During a season that saw some potential wins slip away, they closed the deal in a loud, hostile stadium.

Tim Couch led the Browns to a last-minute, 14-13 win in Baltimore in 2002. This was in late December, during an actual playoff push. (They would defeat Atlanta the next week at home, in the “Run William Run” game.) The Browns offense struggled the entire day, until they gashed the Ravens’ prevent defense at the end. Jamel White, Kevin Johnson, and Quincy Morgan were heroes, along with Couch. Ravens cornerback Chris McAlister assisted with a penalty on a hit out of bounds during the drive. On a goal line play, running back William Green lost the football- the play was reviewed, and the officials apparently only looked at whether he was down, or if he scored. There was no ruling of a fumble. Baltimore’s loss eliminated them from the playoffs.

The Browns swept the Ravens once again in 2007. During a season in which they would wind up with ten wins (and had lost Game 1 due to linebacker Dwayne Rudd’s penalty for removing his helmet as time ticked away, which set up the Chiefs’ winning field goal), the Browns crushed Baltimore in Cleveland. Josh Cribbs had one of his great games returning kicks, and quarterback Derek Anderson, running back (and former Raven) Jamal Lewis, and wide receiver (and Mentor Lake Catholic alumnus) Joe Jurevicius were standouts in that first game.

The Browns earned the sweep in their second matchup. This game was one for the ages. Cribbs again starred (Ravens coach Brian Billick stubbornly refused to kick away from him), finishing this time with 306 total return yards on kickoffs and punts. It was the best return day in Cleveland Browns history.

But this game would become known for a play that would result in an NFL rule change. Browns kicker Phil Dawson lined up to kick a game-tying, 51-yard field goal, into the wind, with time expiring. The ball apparently hit the goalpost and ricocheted back to the field. A referee signaled, “No Good.” The teams ran off the field (especially the Ravens) – but televised replays of the kick showed the ball first glancing off the left upright, then falling ahead to the curved stanchion holding the crossbar, before falling forward back through the uprights and onto the field. It was a good kick. WOW. The refs held a five-minute discussion, and announced to the crowd they were continuing to look at the play. They ended up calling the kick “Good.” It is not clear if they used replay; according to the rules, field goals were not reviewable by replay.

The next offseason, the NFL began allowing kicks that hit any portion of the goal posts to be reviewable. This is known as the “Phil Dawson Rule.” (Later in the year, Dawson hit a kick in a snow storm against the Bills that hit the same curved stanchion. At least in Cleveland, observers began to call that the “Dawson Bar.”)

Matt Stover. Stover was the last kicker for the original Cleveland Browns, before The Move. He kicked for the Ravens until 2008, and became the last Raven to have been with them when they moved. He was a very good kicker- a Browns killer over the years.

After the Dawson kick that eventually spawned the “Dawson Rule”, Stover was being interviewed by a reporter near the field, and was discussing the big ‘win’. Browns quarterback Derek Anderson walked up to Stover in mid-sentence, in the view of the TV camera, and shouted something to him to the effect of, “We got overtime, man!!” That was just hilarious, especially in the context of Dawson actually making that kick in that fashion. And the Browns would win it in overtime, on another long Dawson kick.

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Orlando Brown and Antonio Langham. These were the two players who played in Cleveland when they were moved, and eventually returned to play with the expansion Browns. Orlando Brown, or “Zeus”, was an unrestricted free agent offensive lineman when the Browns signed him in 1999. He was the player struck in the eye with a penalty flag thrown by Jeff Triplette. Brown was ejected from the game for pushing the referee. He was also suspended, although that was lifted when the eye injury failed to heal. Brown ended up suing the league, eventually winning a settlement between $15 million and $25 million.

Cornerback Antonio Langham was drafted by the old Browns in the first round of the 1993 draft. Browns’ top scout Ozzie Newsome was very high on the fellow Alabama Crimson Tide alumnus. He had his best season in 1996, in Baltimore. The ‘new’ Cleveland Browns selected Langham with the 37th, and final, pick in the 1999 expansion draft, from San Francisco.

Bill Belichick. For the record, Belichick was not fired by Cleveland. While some fans did despise him, he was let go after The Move was announced.

Steve Everitt. Browns fans loved the guy. When Cleveland first drafted him out of Michigan as a 1993 first rounder, he was an extremely athletic center. His ability to pull on screens and sweeps like a guard had observers like NFL Hall of Famer Dan Dierdorf gushing about his future.

Everitt was a no-frills guy. A heavy metal buff, his ‘luggage’ on team trips was likely to be a black plastic trash bag. His outfit was typically a white T-shirt and camouflage cargo pants. He was an artist, and his caricatures of subjects such as Tommy Vardell and Vinny Testaverde were a hit with his teammates.

The Browns’ entire offensive line went to get tattoos together, in 1995. This was after the announcement that Modell was moving the team. Everett had a huge dagger tattooed down the length of his spine- it has been reported that the tattoo symbolizes the knife in the back administered by Art Modell.

Everitt is most celebrated in Cleveland for what was perhaps the defining moment of his football career. While on the sideline during a Ravens exhibition game in 1996, he removed a Browns bandana from his bag, and put it on. He later said it was his way of saying goodbye; he hadn’t had a chance to do so before. Fans sent an avalanche of letters to Everitt, thanking him for his support. Some even sent money, to help pay for the $5000 fine he received from the league.

He was amused by the letter he received when he was notified of his fine: it declared that the $5000 would be garnished from his “Browns paycheck.”

(As those who remember the final game at Cleveland Stadium know, Steve Everitt did extend a proper good-bye. He was one of those who lingered at the Dawg Pound, long after the game was over.)

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So yeah, I follow the Ravens. The reasons are complex, but sure- I am over it. Really. Otherwise, it would be pitiful, wouldn’t it?