Adds Belichick: "It was a total withdraw by the city, and the sponsors and all that. And under the circumstances, you couldn't really blame them. They weren't going to support us at that point. We were leaving them.''

Modell: "I have no second thoughts''

Reached this week at home in Maryland, Modell recalled his discomfort at taking the podium in Baltimore that fateful Monday to announce the move, three days after the first news reports surfaced.

"It didn't sit well with me, having to get up there and do that that day,'' said Modell, who gave up his majority ownership in the Baltimore Ravens in early '04, as part of his sale of the team to Steve Bisciotti. "I didn't like it. I didn't want it. But if I didn't move that damn team, I would have been in bankruptcy in 60 days.

"I was uncomfortable, I knew I was going to be vilified. But I was doing it out of pure economic need. I have no second thoughts, and nobody around me has second thoughts. The Browns survived as a football team. Their history and colors survived and they got a new stadium out of it. I knew I would take heat and I was prepared to take it. It was unpleasant. but I knew what I was doing was the right thing, and I still believe I did the right thing.''

Modell's critics have long contended that he was only in such dire economic straits because of years of questionable decision-making when it came to both his and the team's finances. Losing money as an NFL owner in the age of revenue-sharing, the critics contend, is a difficult task.

Asked if had any regrets about the Browns' '95 season being the casualty of his franchise re-location, Modell scoffed.

"They knew what was going on,'' he said of the team's front office and coaching staff. "They had a job to do and they didn't get it done. I can't buy into that. I had to do it sooner than later. I knew the squeeze was on. I would have loved to sell the team and keep it there, but who was I going to sell it to in that situation, with that stadium? Who was going to step up and buy the team under those conditions?''

(Modell's desire to replace the 64-year-old Cleveland Stadium put him at odds with city lawmakers, who reportedly balked at providing the Browns' owner public funds to help build the team a new home.)

Modell said the ensuing decade since his controversial departure from Cleveland has flown by. "Ten years go by in a hurry when you're having fun,'' he quipped. "This is the kind of story where it depends on who gets to tell the history, and what side it's coming from. I will say this, I won a Super Bowl (in Baltimore) within (five) years. That should tell you something.''

Modell even saved one last zinger for Sports Illustrated and its infamous Nov. '95 cover featuring a caricature of him sucker-punching Browns fans.

"I'll never get over that,'' he said. "Never. That was brutal. A brutal cover. Unkind and untrue. It wasn't a case of making a buck, it was a case of survival. They're on my big list.''

The '95 Browns were a breeding ground

Check out the landscape of the NFL today and it speaks volumes to see how many members of the '95 Browns -- a doomed team if there ever was one -- continue to dot the league map (see chart below). The coaches and front office staff of that Browns team comprise virtually a Who's Who of the NFL a decade later. Even a handful of players, such as Vinny Testaverde, Keenan McCardell, Matt Stover and Orlando Brown, remain in uniform.