While waiting out the Indians rain delay, I turned on ESPN Classic and saw the Art Modell episode of the new series "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame". The title pretty much explains it. They give you a bunch of reasons why it supposedly wasn't Art Modell's fault that the Browns moved to Baltimore. I shouldn't have to tell you that this is a stupid idea for a series. Naturally, I'm going to offer my response to each of ESPN's reasons.

First, they offer a couple that didn't make the Top 5:

7. Al Lerner. You'll notice that a lot of these items aren't so much "reasons you can't blame Art Modell" as they are "names of other people who possibly deserve a tiny, insignificant fraction of blame as well". Al Lerner, for example, was the man who introduced Modell to the Maryland officials who eventually made the move to Baltimore possible. This, however, absolves Modell of nothing. Once he decided he wanted to move the team, he was going to do so, regardless of who invited him and how they met. The show also vaguely implies that Lerner may have arranged the meeting because he already had an eye on being the New Browns owner himself. This seems pretty ridiculous too; how could Al Lerner have known then that a new franchise would even be created?
   
   
6. John Elway. The show argues that if it hadn't been for Elway, the Browns might have won a Super Bowl, which would have created such a swell of support and love from the fans and the city that it would have been impossible for the team to move. But firstly, a recent Super Bowl win is not necessarily an impediment to moving: see the 1980 Raiders. And secondly, there is no guarantee that such a victory would have solved Modell's money problems or even caused a swell of support from the city (ie: the local goverment--I don't mean the fans). But this whole line of thinking is incredibly pointless; I can make up "what if" scenarios (in which the Browns don't move) all day long. It's silly to blame Elway/Denver/anybody for preventing something that only might have happened anyway.

And now, the actual Top 5 Reasons:

5. Bill Belichick. The claim here is that, in making some of the fans upset (by getting rid of popular players, etc.), Belichick made the Cleveland business community sour on the Browns, which caused financial problems for Modell. I find this suggestion laughable. Belichick certainly caused tension among some Browns fans, but it never caused the Browns to become any less popular as a phenomenon. Cleveland always had been and always would be crazy for Browns football, and the local business community certainly understood this.
   
   
4. Al Davis and Robert Irsay. Because, you know, 14 years earlier, they showed Art Modell how money could be made by moving your franchise to a new city. As if it were such a hard concept to figure out. I mean, I'll buy this one to a point, but it's not Davis and Irsay I'd blame per se; rather, the system of professional sports economics itself--specifically, how it's possible for team owners to hold cities ransom for ridiculous sums of money by pitting them against other cities with more money to waste on luxury stadiums for rich people. So really, Al Davis and Robert Irsay were only examples of a larger problem. There was also a vague argument somewhere in here about how, since all the other NFL owners were such good friends with Modell, they all allowed the move to happen, when in fact they had the right to block it. But if they didn't try to block Davis or Irsay, they certainly weren't going to block Modell.
   
   
3. The Cleveland Indians. There were a couple of arguments here. One was that the Indians, in becoming insanely popular in 1995, drew fan interest (and thus money) away from the Browns that season. But Browns ticket sales in '95 were as good as they had been for many years (up until the announcement of the move, at least). What money, exactly, were the Indians getting that used to belong to the Browns? There was, of course, the money the Indians themselves used to pay as tenants of Municipal Stadium. One person on the show said the Indians, before moving into Jacobs Field, accounted for "forty percent of [the Browns'] revenue". This figure seems suspect to me. If the Browns depended that heavily on money from one of their tenants instead of, say, money from sponsors and their own ticket sales, then I have to question Art Modell's business sense. It's not as if there weren't a ton of NFL teams out there who played for many years in similar stadiums without the benefit of baseball team tenants. The one Indians argument I'm willing to buy is the suggestion that, with Jacobs Field such a smash success, Art Modell was more likely to feel entitled to a new stadium of his own. While I would argue that the on-field success of the 1995 Indians had little to do with the new stadium (and more to do with a smart front office), at the time, it was widely accepted that Jacobs Field was the reason the Indians were good all of a sudden. Modell may have bought into this, too.
   
   
2. Modell's Finances. In other words, he had no choice. This is clearly the biggest and most immediate reason the Browns moved to Baltimore. But how much of an absolution is it to say "it wasn't Modell's fault, it was all of the financial trouble he was in"? The TV show tries to place the blame for the financial mess on the changing face of NFL economics--basically, free agency and the salary cap--citing the example of Modell's needing to borrow money from a friend just to pay Andre Rison's signing bonus. But the changing face of the NFL affected the other franchises as well, and they all made out pretty well. This brings us to the crux of the matter: the Browns had an unfavorable stadium lease and no hope of getting a new stadium right away. Now, I don't know the details of the Browns' stadium lease at the time, but unless Modell was lying, it had to have been the worst freaking stadium deal in the NFL, because there are plenty of NFL teams who have survived without new stadiums: the Chiefs, the Bills, the Raiders, the Chargers, the Packers, the 49ers, the Cardinals, the Saints and the Cowboys. Of course, there's still the question of whether Modell was entirely straightforward about the direness of his financial situation. In baseball, it's well-documented that many owners (the Selig family chief among them) repeatedly lied and manipulated their books to make it look like they were losing money, when in fact they were doing just fine but wanted to extort money for a new stadium from the taxpayers. Whether this goes on in other sports, I'm not certain, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility.
   
   
1. Rock 'N' Roll. They're trying to be cute by blaming actual rock 'n' roll itself, but what they really mean is the construction of the Rock Hall (along with Jacobs Field, Gund Arena, the Science Center, and so on). I'll buy the fact that Modell felt cheated by being the only game in town without a fancy new building, but I won't buy the notion that he moved the team out of spite. This line of reasoning boils down to the exact same argument outlined above: he couldn't get the new stadium he wanted/felt he needed. There is, however, the question of whether the city, specifically Mayor White, did all they could--or anything at all--to approve a new football stadium. I definitely believe that the mayor didn't take Modell seriously when he threatened to move the Browns. In that regard, Mayor White (and whoever else makes such decisions) was at least indirectly responsible for the Browns' move. But it's hardly fair to blame the construction of the Rock Hall, etc. Those developments, I think it's safe to say, have been mostly good for Cleveland and did not preclude the construction of a new football stadium, especially since, in hindsight, the City of Cleveland did eventually build a new football stadium.

In conclusion, "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Art Modell" did little to change my mind. If anything, I think we can break down the blame like this:

• Al Lerner: 0.000001%
• John Elway: 0.000001%
• Bill Belichick: 0.000001%
• Al Davis and Robert Irsay: 0.000001%
• The Cleveland Indians: 0.000001%
• Michael White/City government: 10%
• Cruel, insensitive fate: 10%
• Art Modell: 79.999995%

That's right, I feel the whole thing was about 80% Modell's fault, and this is more or less how I felt before I watched the TV program. So, yes, ESPN, I can and do blame the bastard for moving the Browns to Baltimore. The End.