The unceremonious — and absolutely, stunning — release of iconic quarterback Bernie Kosar 30 years ago thus week, on Nov. 8, 1993, was hardly a singular event.
Rather, it was connected to so many other things, and ultimately something so much bigger.
Indeed, then, it signaled the beginning of the end of the original Browns franchise in Cleveland.
Browns owner Art Modell, as we would learn later, had, by the time of Kosar’s exit, already begun thinking about the prospects of a new stadium for his team since March 1984 when, in the middle of the night, the Colts uprooted themselves from Baltimore, where they played in old, outdated stadium with nothing new on the horizon, and headed west for much greener pastures in Indianapolis where they would play in a new domed stadium.
Hmmm.
“If Bob Irsay (Colts owner) could do it, then why can’t I?,” Modell reasoned to himself and also likely those in his inner circle.
The avalanche of negative criticism toward him and the man he hired who jettisoned Kosar in such a sloppy and awkward fashion, head coach Bill Belichick, was light years beyond the scope of anything Modell imagined. He had egregiously misjudged the reaction.
The fans turned on both Modell and Belichick. Hate is a strong word, but this was definitely hate. It cooled a bit over the next two years, but it definitely remained, even causing a lukewarm reaction when the club went 11-5 in 1994 and earned its first playoff berth in five years.
With that, then, and the city fathers in Cleveland putting Modell’s and the Browns ‘ wants and needs for a new stadium on the back-burner while they built new facilities downtown for the Indians and Cavaliers, hurt and angered Modell enough that it made it easier for him, in his mind, to pursue with great energy possibilities in other cities.
He had to begin telling lies to throw suspicious people off the trail as he put his plan into motion. It was quite easy, actually, because who would believe that the Browns would leave Cleveland? To be sure, that appeared to have about as much of a chance of happening as two-long suffering teams, the Indians and the Northwestern Wildcats, winning championships.
Yeah, right!
Two years almost to the day after Kosar’s departure, on Nov. 6, 1995, news officially broke of the deal between Modell and officials in Baltimore to move the Browns there after that season, with the building of a new stadium as the key to the deal.
In 1995, the Indians won the American League championship and made it to the World Series for the first time in 41 years, losing out on a World Series title with a clinching Game 6 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Oct. 28, or nine days before the Browns’ announcement. Likewise, Northwestern captured its first Big Ten football championship in 59 years on Nov. 25.
Those of us in the media covering the Browns then joked that the apocalypse was near.
When the smoke cleared, we saw a world in which Art Modell will forever be hailed as a hero in Baltimore for delivering a pro football team back there, and a world in which he will also forever be demonized as a villain in Cleveland for making the Browns that sacrificial team.
And now, on the 30th anniversary of the event that began in earnest the process of making all this happen, doesn’t it seem fitting that the new Browns and their alter-ego, the old Browns, AKA the Baltimore Ravens, will meet on Sunday in that brand new stadium on the East Coast with so very much on the line in the AFC North?
Steve King
