Modell is, I think, rightfully hated by Cleveland (and apparently David Modell, who came off really well in this piece, was a completely useless rich boy who was best known for nose candy habits). But I can't blame Baltimore in this instance. I can blame Tagliabue for awarding franchises which are now floundering (seriously, how many blackouts does Jacksonville need to have before they move that damn team) to the wrong cities. I can blame Irsay. But I can't blame Colts fans.
Except in 1993, awarding the Carolina franchise made sense as Charlotte in those days was beginning to become much more of a major league market (and in fact, had the Panthers not gotten off to an 0-5 start in 1995, they might have actually made the playoffs in their first year of existance). What I think may have been why Jacksonville, and not Baltimore got the other expansion franchise may have had a lot to do with the same reason Washington didn't get another baseball team until MLB transferred the Expos from Montreal to where they became the Nationals: Territorial issues.
If you remember, Jack Kent Cooke still owned the Redskins at the time the 1995 expansion teams were announced. I'm thinking that behind the scenes, Cooke might have demanded too much from the NFL to give Baltimore an expansion franchise, and as I remember Cooke, as one of the "old guard" of NFL owners at the time may have had too much influence to allow Baltimore to get an expansion team.
That said, what I do think Tagliabue should have done in 1995 when the Browns moved to Baltimore was this: Demand the Irsays swap franchises with Modell, with the then-Browns moving to Indianpolis to replace a Colts team that would have, name and all, moved back to Baltimore (and this would have been if that had happened the second time an Irsay swapped a franchise, as back in the '70s Robert Irsay got the Colts from the late Carroll Rosenbloom in exchange for the Rams franchise Irsay had at the time (Rosenbloom died about a year after that happened, and his widow Georgia Frontierre took over the Rams, with of course the Rams ironically moving to another city that had previously lost an NFL franchise in St. Louis for the 1995 season). Short of the Irsays agreeing to swap the Colts for the Browns franchise (that would have in that scenario replaced the Colts in Indy), Tagliabue should have in retrospect demanded the Irsays give up the Colts name and allow that to go to Modell with the Browns to Baltimore, with the Indy franchise then given a new name in either instance (my choice would have been the Racers, with Indy Cars as the logo since of course the Indy 500 is probably what Indy is still best known for to many), and if necessary compensating the Irsays in some manner (whether it be extra draft picks or being guaranteed the #1 overall pick in the draft for a few years regardless of record and such picks being exempt from any salary cap and/or monetairly) to make it happen.
Given that even almost a decade and a half after the announcement of the old Browns moving to Baltimore that there are
still a considerable number of old Colts fans, even with the Ravens winning a Super Bowl and making numerous playoff appearences that have never felt whole because it was not done as the Baltimore Colts, even now if I were Godell, I'd be trying to right what is still considered a wrong by some in Baltimore by working an arrangement that the Colts name goes back to Baltimore (with the Ravens in that scenario becoming the Baltimore Colts, and retroactively all records under the Ravens plus the pre-1984 Baltimore Colts history belonging to what would now be the Baltimore Colts once again) and the Indy franchise getting a new name, with its entire 26-year history in Indy (1984-present, including their Super Bowl win three seasons ago) going under whatever the new name the Indianapolis franchise got. That to me would give older Colts fans a true sense of closure.
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