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NFL NFL Season is Underway The Baltimore Ravens are throwing an anniversary party this weekend and were thoughtful enough to invite their ex-spouse to the bash. You know, the one who never recovered from the divorce, whose life spiraled into decay. There are nine home games on the Ravens’ schedule this season, ample options for choosing when to celebrate 30 years of football returning to Baltimore. Team officials selected the opener and the Cleveland Browns as the opponent, the city from which it stole the franchise in 1995. How considerate. Advertisement The Legend of the Game Sunday is Ozzie Newsome, the Ravens’ former general manager who never played a snap for them but who remains the Browns’ all-time leading receiver with 662 receptions. (The fact that this pitiful franchise’s all-time receptions leader remains a tight end from the 1980s speaks to the depression and the “new” Browns era. ) The honorary captains for Sunday’s game are John Moag, Parris Glendening, Kurt Schmoke and John Modell. Schmoke was the mayor of Baltimore when the team arrived. John is Art Modell’s son. Glendening was the governor of Maryland and sat on the private jet while Art Modell signed Cleveland’s death certificate in October 1995. Moag was the key figure in Baltimore behind all of it. I spoke to Moag a few years ago about his role in bringing Cleveland’s football franchise to Baltimore. Moag is a powerful, well-connected attorney in the Baltimore-Washington metro area. He was hired by the Washington Football Team’s minority partners a few years ago when they sought to sell their interests in the team. He also feuded with Dan Snyder during Snyder’s bitter removal from the franchise. Back in the 1990s, however, Moag was the youngest attorney ever elected partner at Patton Boggs. He was appointed by Glendening to run the Maryland Stadium Authority with the sole purpose of bringing the NFL back to Baltimore after the Colts were stolen away in 1984. Moag executed his mission brilliantly under a tight, intense deadline. For decades, Modell has been rightfully painted as the villain for taking the original Browns to Baltimore. That stain will never come off his name and has excluded him from the Pro Football Hall of Fame for all of these years. But Al Lerner has managed to mostly escape the scorn he deserves for being an accessory to robbery. It was Lerner who set all of it up, I believe, for the selfish purpose of acquiring his own NFL franchise. Zack Meisel and I detailed all of this in a lengthy two-part series on the 25-year anniversary of the move. (Here is the ancillary piece. ) Advertisement “I don’t think Art was the bad guy in this. I think by the time we get to 1995, Art doesn’t even understand his own business anymore and was kind of out of it, ” Tom Chema told me. Chema was the executive director of the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex that constructed new downtown venues for Cleveland’s baseball and basketball teams in the 1990s. He also tried helping Modell get a new football stadium before the move. “The bad guy, in my opinion, was Al Lerner. ” “Lerner probably was the engineer of the whole move to Baltimore, ” Jay Westbrook told me. Westbrook was the Cleveland City Council president when the Browns left. “Al wanted an NFL team, ” Jim Bailey told me. Bailey was the Browns’ former general counsel and executive vice president. He was a close confidant to both Modell and Lerner, but particularly Modell. “I’m never prepared to say that Al caused the move to happen or that he had a master plan to end up with the Browns, but he knew that if the Browns moved, he had a chance of getting the team. ” If Bailey doesn’t want to say it, I will: I believe Lerner absolutely had a master plan to move Modell and the former Browns out of Cleveland, clearing the way for him to finally become an NFL owner. How do I know? Chema told me Lerner tried doing the same thing with Mike Brown in Cincinnati. Chema, who died earlier this year, went to work for Brown in 1995 when the Bengals were attempting to get a new stadium constructed. It was no secret Brown was in talks with Moag and Baltimore about potentially moving there. Chema told me Brown once confided in him that Lerner picked Brown up in his private jet and flew him to Baltimore for a meeting with Maryland state officials. Lerner had much of his business empire in Baltimore. “I think (Lerner) was trying to be a good corporate citizen for Baltimore and trying to get them a team back, ” Chema said. “Although, I think he had ulterior motives. I think he always wanted to own a team and was trying to figure out how he would wiggle his way into ownership. ” Advertisement Lerner accomplished his mission of both getting Modell out of Cleveland and securing ownership of the new Browns. That there is a statue of Lerner in front of the Browns’ practice facility is a disgrace. That the city named the stadium’s address after him — 100 Alfred Lerner Way — upon completion in 1999 is another illustration of how misguided leadership has been in Cleveland for generations. Lerner is not the hero who brought football back to Cleveland. He is nearly as culpable for the Browns’ leaving as Modell. He is the one who met with Moag at Camden Yards the night Cal Ripken Jr. broke baseball’s consecutive games played record; he relentlessly encouraged Modell to meet with Moag; he orchestrated the luncheon at his own Manhattan office in which Modell signed the Memorandum of Understanding detailing that a legal pact was forthcoming. He is the one who flew Modell to Baltimore on his private jet — the same jet that previously carried Brown there from Cincinnati — for the official paperwork to be signed, consummating the move. Art Modell died in 2012. If John Modell is going to be on the stage Sunday in Baltimore representing his father’s role in all of this, then Randy Lerner, Al’s disinterested son who never wanted the Browns but took over anyway after Al died in 2002, might as well sit right next to him. Lerner sold to the Haslams in 2012, but nothing here has improved under the Haslams. The @Ravens mark 30 years since pro football’s return to the city with a celebration set for their opener against the Cleveland Browns. CM contributor @dmansworld474’s takeaway: The event is in poor taste, brought to you by Absolute Roofing and Construction. ? All-Pro Reels pic. twitter. com/VGCa SAlb8y — Cleveland Magazine (@Cleveland Mag) September 10, 2025 As the Ravens toast to two Super Bowls on Sunday in their first 30 years, as the founding fathers slap backs and pop bottles congratulating each other on a job well done, the Browns are the jesters and jugglers simply there for the amusement of the rich. They enter as nearly two-touchdown underdogs, the homecoming opponent every varsity team wants to schedule to crown their new king and queen. The Ravens are among the favorites again to reach the Super Bowl, while in Cleveland, another rebuild and another search for a quarterback is well underway. There are no trophies here, no backs worth slapping and no bottles to pop. Only a silly statue deifying the man who conspired to steal in office. Cleveland’s most excruciating loss was not The Drive or The Fumble or any World Series game, but rather on the secret runways of private jets and Manhattan office buildings. Thirty years later, Cleveland is still waiting for the Browns to return. (Photo of Art Modell: Daniel Lippitt / AFP via Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Jason Lloyd is a senior columnist for The Athletic, focusing on the Browns, Cavs and Guardians. Follow Jason on Twitter @By Jason Lloyd