Settlement
After extensive talks between the NFL, the Browns and officials of the two cities, Cleveland accepted a legal settlement that would keep the Browns' legacy in Cleveland. On February 9, 1996, the NFL announced that the Browns would be 'deactivated' for three years, and that a new stadium would be built for a new Browns team, as either an expansion team or a team moved from another city, that would begin play in 1999. Modell would in turn then be granted a new franchise (the 31st NFL franchise), for Baltimore, retaining the current contracts of players and personnel. There would be a reactivated team for Cleveland, where the Browns' name, colors, history, records, awards and archives would remain in Cleveland. The only other current NFL team to suspend operations without merging with another was Cleveland's previous NFL team, the Rams, during the 1943 season at the height of World War II.
An additional stipulation was that in any future realignment plan, the Browns would automatically be placed in a division with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals, because of longstanding rivalries with those two teams. Upon their reactivation in 1999, the Browns were placed back in the AFC Central with the Steelers and Bengals, as well as the rechristened Ravens (neé Browns), Titans and Jaguars. When the NFL realigned into divisions of four teams for the 2002 season, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Baltimore remained together, but in the newly created AFC North.
Read more about this topic: Cleveland Browns Relocation Controversy
Famous quotes containing the word settlement:
“A Tory..., since the revolution, may be defined in a few words, to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty; and a partizan of the family of Stuart. As a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty though without renouncing monarchy; and a friend to the settlement in the protestant line.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“... if the Settlement seeks its expression through social activity, it must learn the difference between mere social unrest and spiritual impulse.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)