Art Modell, Longtime Browns and Ravens Owner, Dies
Bypasses Heaven, Descends Directly to Hell

(Baltimore, MD) — Art Modell, the owner of the NFL's Cleveland Browns who moved the team in 1995 to Baltimore, earning him years of derision and banishment from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died of "natural causes" today at the age of 87, according to family members, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Modell will be remembered as one of the few NFL owners who first married the game with television, eventually making it the most popular sport in America.

Modell will also be remembered as the man who brought the NFL back to Baltimore. The Baltimore Colts left when they were stolen by Indianapolis in 1984. Pro football would not be played again in Baltimore until the 1996 season, after Modell stole the Browns from Cleveland and renamed them the Ravens.

Many Browns fans still do not forgive him – and may never forgive him – for the move, announced on November 6, 1995. He remains reviled in Cleveland, which had its heart broken by a longtime civic leader.

Once in Baltimore, the Ravens were able to do something Modell and the Browns were never able to do: win a Super Bowl. The Ravens beat the New York Giants, 34-7, in Super Bowl XXXV in January 2001.

Even with the Super Bowl win, the move to Baltimore came at a terrible price. The act of greed and shame is likely for what Modell will be most remembered, and his delayed enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame may never come.

Fan and player reaction was expectedly mixed. A spokesman for Ray Lewis, a Baltimore Ravens defensive player, thanked Modell for the opportunity to murder someone in Maryland. "Otherwise, he would have killed someone in Ohio," said the spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Former fans of Modell were not as kind in their words. Many wanted to know that time and date of his interment so they could "spit on his grave," according to one Facebook page, quoted on condition of anonymity. And other fans planned on picketing the funeral, constructing a huge "Burn in Hell, Mother[explicative]" banner for the occasion, according to a protest spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity.