NFL Network documentary on 1995 Browns reveals what might have been
Nearly 17 years after the original Browns left Cleveland, their exodus remains a painful wound for the city. It was re-opened last month when former team owner Art Modell died. And it likely will be again Wednesday night when Cleveland '95: A Football Life premieres on NFL Network.
This latest documentary in the NFL Films series focuses not so much on what was as what might have been.
The Bill Belichick-coached Browns were coming off an 11-5 playoff season in 1994 and seemed perched to further buoy a city that saw the Indians reach the World Series in 1995.
Instead, the civic psyche was scarred when financial challenges and the lack of a new stadium led Modell to announce the franchise's re-location to Baltimore.
"You could see that good times were ahead, and it all fell apart," said Mary Kay Cabot of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer.
The Super Bowl trip that has forever eluded the Browns seemed near in large part to the talent Belichick amassed on his staff, one that included nine future NFL head coaches and general managers and three major college head coaches. Ozzie Newsome, Scott Pioli, Mike Tannenbaum, Thomas Dimitroff, Jim Schwartz, Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz and Eric Mangini are among the names.
"What was Bill looking for in people? Bill was looking for Bill, and he found a lot of little Bills," recalls Newsome, who's quick to credit Belichick's philosophies for his own subsequent success with the Baltimore Ravens.
"When I won in 2000, owe a lot of that to Bill Belichick."
After Belichick resurfaced with the New England Patriots in 2000, he re-hired Pioli and Dimitroff, now the GMs for the Kansas City Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons, respectively.
"We spent a lot of time talking about what was good in Cleveland, what was bad in Cleveland, what went wrong in Cleveland. We kept the core of a lot of the philosophical things. There was a lot of learning from the Cleveland experience," Pioli says of the trio's time together in New England, one that produced three Lombardi Trophies for the Patriots.
The Browns? They're still waiting for their first championship since 1964 and haven't won a playoff game since their 1999 rebirth.
"Bill Belichick was supposed to lead this team to the promised land," says Cabot.
It's a fresh and compelling look at one of the toughest chapters in NFL history and how it affected the men embroiled in it.
Unless you're perhaps from Cleveland, definitely tune in tonight for Cleveland '95: A Football Life at 8 p.m. ET on NFL Network.