Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How old is the Cleveland Browns team now?
The franchise was founded in 1945 by businessman Arthur B. McBride and coach Paul Brown as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). The Browns dominated the AAFC, compiling a 47–4–3 record in the league's four seasons and winning its championship in each.[11] When the AAFC folded after the 1949 season, the Browns joined the National Football League along with the San Francisco 49ers and the original Baltimore Colts. The Browns won a championship in their inaugural NFL season, as well as in the 1954, 1955, and 1964 seasons, and in a feat unequaled in any of the North American major professional sports, played in their league championship game in each of the Browns' first ten years of existence. From 1965 to 1995, they made the playoffs 14 times, but did not win another championship or appear in the Super Bowl during that period.
After returning to Cleveland, Goddard also took a job with the NFL's Cleveland Browns as the team's official statistician for home games. Then a CBS affiliate, WJW carried Browns games at the time as part of their NFL play-by-play contract until the 1970 AFL-NFL merger (due to the Browns move to the AFC), at which point the games moved to WKYC – this was a key factor in his having joined the station. He held this position from 1966 to 2011, with the exception of a three-year period from 1996–1999 when the franchise was suspended as the old Browns franchise moved to Baltimore and Cleveland was given a new team.
In 1995, then-Browns owner Art Modell made the decision to move the team from Cleveland, Ohio to Baltimore, Maryland. An agreement between the city of Cleveland and the NFL kept the team’s history, name and colors in Cleveland, while Modell’s new team would be regarded as an expansion team. The Baltimore Ravens would begin play in 1996, and the Browns would return to the league in 1999. For record-keeping purposes, the Browns are considered to have suspended operations from 1996 to 1998, which is reflected in this list. In 2017, the Cleveland Browns became the second team in NFL history to suffer an 0–16 record.
The Browns' perfect season and third championship victory came during a strong year for Cleveland sports teams. That April, the Cleveland Barons, the city's American Hockey League team, won the Calder Cup championship. The Cleveland Indians, the city's Major League Baseball club, set an all-time season attendance record and won the World Series. The Browns' success was also a major draw for fans: the team led professional football in attendance in 1948 with an average of 45,517 people per game, although that was still 10,000 lower than the year before. The distribution of talent and fortune among AAFC's teams was unbalanced, however, and while the Browns, the 49ers and the Dons were successes at the gate, teams including the Rockets and Colts languished financially. The NFL was also facing major financial trouble – nine of its ten teams lost money that year – and the two leagues' competition for talent led to talks about a merger. Discussions centered around how many AAFC teams the NFL would absorb; most owners favored four teams, but the talks broke down when powerful owners George Preston Marshall of the Washington Redskins and Tim Mara of the New York Giants intervened and suggested only Cleveland and San Francisco should be absorbed. The AAFC continued play in 1949, but was disbanded after that season. The Browns, 49ers and Colts were merged into the NFL starting in 1950.
McBride developed a passion for football attending games at Notre Dame, where his son went to college. In the early 1940s he tried to buy the NFL's Cleveland Rams, owned by millionaire supermarket heir Dan Reeves, but was rebuffed. Having been awarded the Cleveland franchise in the AAFC, McBride asked "Cleveland Plain Dealer" sportswriter John Dietrich for head coaching suggestions. Dietrich recommended Paul Brown, the 36-year-old Ohio State Buckeyes coach. After consulting with Ward, McBride followed Dietrich's advice in early 1945, naming Brown head coach and giving him an ownership stake in the team and full control over player personnel. Brown, who had built an impressive record as coach of a Massillon, Ohio high school team and brought the Buckeyes their first national championship, at the time was serving in the U.S. Navy and coached the football team at Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago.
To finish the merger, the Browns, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Colts, agreed to move in 1970 from the NFL to the old AFL, renamed the AFC, to balance the leagues, now called conferences (NFC and AFC), at 13 clubs each. The merger had hit a stalemate when none of the NFL teams initially wanted to jump to what many of the old-line NFL people felt was an inferior league overall.
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 2009 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 61st season as a professional sports franchise and its 57th season as a member of the National Football League (NFL). The team placed fourth in the AFC North with a record of 5–11, improving upon its 2008 record of 4–12. This season marked George Kokinis and Eric Mangini's first seasons as the team's general manager and head coach, respectively; however, Kokinis was fired on November 2 during the team's Week 9 bye week. The Browns played all of their home games at Cleveland Browns Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.
FirstEnergy Stadium is located on the site of Cleveland Stadium, commonly called Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a multipurpose facility built in 1931 that served as the Browns' home field from their inception in 1946 through the 1995 season. During the 1995 season, owner Art Modell announced his plans to move the team to Baltimore, which resulted in legal action from the city of Cleveland and Browns season ticket holders. The day after the announcement was made, voters in Cuyahoga County approved an extension of the original 1990 sin tax on alcohol and tobacco products to fund renovations to Cleveland Stadium. Eventually, as part of the agreement between Modell, the city of Cleveland, and the NFL, the city agreed to tear down Cleveland Stadium and build a new stadium on the same site using the sin tax funds. Modell agreed to leave the Browns name, colors, and history in Cleveland and create a new identity for his franchise, eventually becoming the Baltimore Ravens, while the NFL agreed to reactivate the Browns by 1999 through expansion or relocation of another team. Demolition on the old stadium began in November 1996 and was completed in early 1997. Debris from the former stadium was submerged in Lake Erie and now serves as an artificial reef.
McBride developed a passion for football attending games at Notre Dame, where his son went to college. In the early 1940s he tried to buy the NFL's Cleveland Rams, owned by millionaire supermarket heir Dan Reeves, but was rebuffed. Having been awarded the Cleveland franchise in the AAFC, McBride asked "Cleveland Plain Dealer" sportswriter John Dietrich for head coaching suggestions. Dietrich recommended Paul Brown, the 36-year-old Ohio State Buckeyes coach. After consulting with Ward, McBride followed Dietrich's advice in early 1945, naming Brown head coach and giving him an ownership stake in the team and full control over player personnel. Brown, who had built an impressive record as coach of a Massillon, Ohio, high school team and brought the Buckeyes their first national championship, at the time was serving in the U.S. Navy and coached the football team at Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago.
When the AFL and NFL merged before the 1970 season, Cleveland became part of the new American Football Conference (AFC). While the Browns made it back to the playoffs in 1971 and 1972, they fell into mediocrity through the mid-1970s. A revival of sorts took place in 1979 and 1980, when quarterback Brian Sipe engineered a series of last-minute wins and the Browns came to be called the "Kardiac Kids". Under Sipe, however, the Browns did not make it past the first round of the playoffs. Quarterback Bernie Kosar, who the Browns drafted in 1985, led the team to three AFC Championship games in the late 1980s but lost each time. In 1995, Modell announced he was relocating the Browns to Baltimore, sowing a mix of outrage and bitterness among Cleveland's dedicated fan base. Negotiations and legal battles led to an agreement where Modell was allowed to move the team, but Cleveland kept the Browns' name, colors and history. After three years of suspension while the old municipal stadium was demolished and Cleveland Browns Stadium took its place, the Browns started play again in 1999 under new owner Al Lerner. Since resuming operations, the Browns have made the playoffs only once, as a wild-card team in 2002.
The city has been home to several additional professional sports franchises, including a women's basketball team, multiple soccer teams, and a past incarnation of the Cleveland Browns now known as the Baltimore Ravens. Cleveland has also been home to several ice hockey franchises, beginning in 1937 with the AHL member Cleveland Barons. The original Barons, although having been the most successful team in AHL history at that point, moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where they subsequently folded after one season. The salient cause of the Baron's move came from Nick Mileti's short-lived WHA franchise, the Cleveland Crusaders, which shared the old Cleveland Arena with the Barons in beginning in 1972. The new league ultimately created a financial disparity that the Barons could not compete with. Local philanthropist George Gund III facilitated the relocation of the NHL's California Golden Seals to Cleveland in 1976 and renamed them the Barons. However, this latest incarnation was short lived, with the team merging with the Minnesota North Stars following the 1977–78 season. In 1992 the Cleveland Lumberjacks, of the also now-defunct IHL, began play and lasted until 2001. Later in 2001, a third incarnation of the Barons was established, this time having returned to the AHL. The Barons moved to Worcester, Massachusetts following the 2006 season.
While the Browns' new stadium was being built on the site of the old Cleveland Stadium, the foundation of the front office was being set in place. Al Lerner won a bidding war for the new team for $750 million. Lerner hired former San Francisco 49ers front office staffers Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark as the Browns' president and vice president.
Brickels, Simonetti's old high school coach, in 1945 became an assistant for the Cleveland Browns, a new team in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Brickels recruited Simonetti to play for the team when Simonetti was still serving in the Pacific War. Simonetti joined the Browns when the team started play in 1946, but was a reserve and did not appear in any games during the regular season. Cleveland finished the year with a 12–2 record and advanced to the AAFC championship. Team captain Jim Daniell, however, was dismissed from the team the week before the title game after getting arrested following an altercation with Cleveland police. Cleveland head coach Paul Brown got permission from the league to use Simonetti in the game as Daniell's replacement. The Browns beat the New York Yankees, 14–9.
When the team debuted in 1968, the Bengals' uniforms were modeled after the Cleveland Browns. When Paul Brown was fired by Art Modell, Brown still owned the equipment used by Cleveland. So after the firing, Paul Brown packed up all his equipment, which he then used for his new team in Cincinnati. The Cleveland Browns' team colors were brown, orange, and white, and their helmets were solid orange with a white dorsal stripe over the crest.
However, many Browns fans and Cleveland city officials were determined to keep the team in Cleveland, and orchestrated a grassroots movement to keep the team in Cleveland. The NFL responded by working with city officials, and the two parties came to a unique agreement which would provide the city with a brand-new, state-of-the-art stadium and would promise the return of professional football to Cleveland by the beginning of the 1999 season. Modell also agreed to relinquish the Browns' name, colors and team history to the new owner of the Browns. Modell's new team would begin playing in the 1996 season as the Baltimore Ravens.
The City of Cleveland sued Modell and other entities in "City of Cleveland v. Cleveland Browns, et al.", Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CV-95-297833, for breaching the Browns' lease, filing an injunction to keep the Browns in Cleveland until at least 1998. Several other lawsuits were filed by fans and ticket holders. The United States Congress even held hearings on the matter. On the field, the Browns stumbled to finish 5–11 after the announcement, Virtually all of the team's sponsors pulled their support, leaving Cleveland Stadium devoid of advertising during the team's final weeks. The final game the team played at Cleveland Municipal Stadium was a 26–10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the first and only win since the announcement of the relocation.
Originally conceived due to the personal animosity between Paul Brown and Art Modell, the "Battle of Ohio" between the Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals has been fueled by the sociocultural differences between Cincinnati and Cleveland, a shared history between the two teams, and even similar team colors, since Brown used the exact shade of orange for the Bengals that he used for the Browns. (Though this has changed since then, as the Bengals now use a brighter shade of orange.) Modell, in fact, moved the Browns to the AFC after the AFL–NFL merger in order to have a rivalry with the Bengals. The rivalry has also produced two of the eight highest-scoring games in NFL history. Cincinnati has the all-time edge 50–39, having won the majority of games against the Browns since they returned to the NFL in 1999 (25 wins for Cincinnati and 12 wins for Cleveland).
The name of the team was at first left up to Brown, who rejected calls for it to be christened the Browns. McBride then held a contest to name the team in May 1945; "Cleveland Panthers" was the most popular choice, but Brown rejected it because it was the name of an earlier failed football team. "That old Panthers team failed", Brown said. "I want no part of that name." In August, McBride gave in to popular demand and named the team the Browns, despite Paul Brown's objections.
The Cleveland Browns Radio Network dates back to the 1940s when team founder and namesake Paul Brown served as coach, and the team itself played in the now-defunct All-America Football Conference. As of the 1974 Browns season, WHK/Cleveland served as the flagship station for a network of 34 total affiliates, including three stations in Pennsylvania; all but five stations broadcast on the AM band.
The Cleveland Browns were a professional football team from 1946 until owner Art Modell moved the club to Baltimore in 1995. However, in a deal with the NFL and the City of Cleveland, the team was declared inactive for three years until a new expansion club, under the old name and colors, was established in 1999. The new Browns are considered a continuation of the old franchise.
The history of the Cleveland Browns American football team began in 1944 when taxi-cab magnate Arthur B. "Mickey" McBride secured a Cleveland franchise in the newly formed All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Paul Brown was the team's namesake and first coach. The Browns began play in 1946 in the AAFC. The Browns won each of the league's four championship games before the league dissolved in 1949. The team then moved to the more established National Football League (NFL), where it continued to dominate. Between 1950 and 1955, Cleveland reached the NFL championship game every year, winning three times.
Cleveland native Arsenio Hall's television program, The Arsenio Hall Show, is known for the audience's shouting "Woof, woof, woof!" while pumping their fists—a chant that was used by fans of the Cleveland Browns football team. He would refer to a section of the live audience as his "Dawg Pound".[61] On The Drew Carey Show, Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar appears (uncredited) in the episode "Drewstock" (aired January 29, 1997). In the episode "Drew Goes To The Browns Game", (aired September 29, 1999), Drew attends the Browns' first regular season game since re-joining the NFL. (In real life, Drew Carey actually did appear on-field at the first regular season game when the team returned in 1999.) Cleveland Brown is the name of a character originally featured on the Fox TV show Family Guy, and the central character of the spin-off series The Cleveland Show. On the TV show How I Met Your Mother, in the seventh-season premiere, the main characters go to a Cleveland Browns-themed wedding. The Browns have been featured on some level in episodes of Hot In Cleveland and even in promotional videos using at least one of the main characters. In the episode "How Did You Guys Meet, Anyway?" (January 4, 2012), the characters reminisce about how they met in the 1980s while waiting in the restroom line at a Cleveland Browns game.[62] In the episode "God and Football" (January 18, 2012), Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli) develops a relationship with the Browns place kicker (played by Dan Cortese). In the episode "The Gateway Friend" (May 2, 2012) Browns wide receiver/return specialist Josh Cribbs appears as himself portraying a karaoke contestant. After Super Bowl XLVI, Betty White appears in a video as Elka wearing a Browns jacket congratulating the New York Giants and hoping that the Browns win it one season.[63] After the first round of the 2014 NFL draft, the four main characters appear in a video welcoming Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel to the Browns.[64] The 1966 film The Fortune Cookie with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau features the Browns and the city of Cleveland throughout the movie and was made with the cooperation of the Browns.[65] The 2008 film The Express explains how Ernie Davis is traded to the Browns by the Washington Redskins.[66] Early in the film, Jim Brown is taking photos in his Browns uniform after being drafted by them. Later in the film, it shows Davis struggling with leukemia after being drafted and the Browns hold a special pre-game ceremony for him. In the 2010 film Hot Tub Time Machine, the Browns win the 1986 AFC Championship Game (the game famous for former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway's 98-yard drive). It is explained that the reason why the Browns win this game is due to the butterfly effect. In the 2014 film Draft Day, fictional Browns general manager Sonny Weaver, Jr. (Kevin Costner) attempts to land the number one pick in the NFL draft.
The 2007 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 59th season as a professional sports franchise and its 55th season as a member of the National Football League (NFL). The season began with the Browns attempting to improve upon their 4–12 record from the 2006 season, in which the team finished in fourth place in the AFC North. The Browns also attempted to overcome the many injuries that plagued the team throughout the 2006 season. The Browns remained under the supervision of head coach Romeo Crennel and they played all of their home games in Cleveland Browns Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.
Modell's move of the Browns breached the team's lease, and the City of Cleveland sued. As part of the settlement, the city agreed to demolish Cleveland Stadium and build a new stadium on the same site. Modell agreed to leave the Browns' name, colors, and history in Cleveland, and the NFL agreed to have a resurrected Browns team by 1999, either by relocation or expansion. Demolition on Cleveland Stadium began in November 1996 and was completed in early 1997. of demolition debris was dumped into Lake Erie to create three artificial reefs for fishermen and divers, offshore of Cleveland and neighboring Lakewood. Construction on the new stadium began later in 1997 and it opened in August 1999 as Cleveland Browns Stadium.