"I remember the final home game, it was surreal day,'' Pioli said. "The city's anger had peaked that day. And during the fourth quarter, they actually had to stop the game every time a team was driving toward the one end zone nearest the 'Dawg Pound', where the stands were so close to the field. The refs were making the two teams turn around once they got close to the Pound, because fans were heaving bleacher seats from the Pound and from the upper deck.

"I remember hearing this cracking noise, this sound, this unnatural sound for a football game. And it was people in the upper deck actually ripping up the wood and the metal from these seats and throwing them out on the field. You'd hear a cheer every time another one would go over the rail.''

Belichick said he has watched the game film from that day, and it's jarring to see the teams changing directions so often, in essence playing on a 50-yard field.

"We changed directions four times in that game,'' he said. "To stay away from the Pound. And I'll never forget seeing those seats, and they were like four seats together, and must have weighed 70 or 80 pounds, watching as they would get pitched over the upper deck. There were guys who actually brought their tools to the game and were literally taking the stadium apart. It was bizarre.''

Even Testaverde, the Browns starting quarterback for most of that season, found time to grab a few souvenirs of that lost year in Cleveland.

"The best part about it was when the Modells left town, David, Art's son, also left town prior to the whole team moving,'' Testaverde said this week. "Up in David's office, he used to keep all these cigars -- he was a cigar aficionado. I'd go up there every couple days and take a few. At the end of the year, I had me a couple cases of cigars. He wasn't around to stop me.''

For Belichick and the rest of the Browns, the ugliness of that last home game summarized their entire lame-duck experience in Cleveland. The season's final two months was a slow, steady depressing descent.

"Art had no concept of how bad it was there during those two months, because he was gone,'' Belichick said. "I didn't feel bad for myself, because I knew I'd get another job somewhere else in the league. But it was hard for my family. And it was for all those people in the organization, the people who had worked there for years and who bled Cleveland Browns for him. They didn't deserve being flat out dumped.''