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Bill Belichick (Former New England Patriots Head Coach)

Some choicer pieces from the long article

The Final Game
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Browns fans expressed their anger over the team's move by literally tearing Cleveland Stadium apart during the last game of 1995.
"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.''

Modell's take on the treatment of the Brown's Staff by him in '95

Asked if had any regrets about the Browns' '95 season being the casualty of his franchise re-location, Modell scoffed.
"They knew what was going on,'' he said of the team's front office and coaching staff. "They had a job to do and they didn't get it done. I can't buy into that. I had to do it sooner than later. I knew the squeeze was on. I would have loved to sell the team and keep it there, but who was I going to sell it to in that situation, with that stadium? Who was going to step up and buy the team under those conditions?''

Bellichick's take from closer to the action.
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.''

And for anyone who needs further convincing as to Modell's lack of stones after the news broke about the move (the Browns were then 4-4) ..
Belichick implored Modell to address the team and the organization, offering something in the way of a definitive timetable for the move, and who would be asked to go with the team to Baltimore. But other than a brief, cursory pep talk to the team on the Wednesday following the relocation announcement, Modell said little and clarified even less. Modell at that point left the city for his home in West Palm Beach, Fla., making quick trips to Baltimore as well, and never again that year returned to Cleveland. He barely kept in contact with the team's front office.
 
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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.''

:slappy: Good for Vinnie.
 
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DDN

Johnson Says Coach Ignored His Condition

NEW YORK ? Former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson said coach Bill Belichick subjected him to hard hits in practice while he was recovering from a concussion ? against the advice of the team's top trainer.
Johnson, who helped the Patriots win three Super Bowl titles before retiring two years ago, told The New York Times that a collision with another player during that 2002 practice led to another concussion. And, after sustaining additional concussions over the next three seasons, he now forgets people's names, misses appointments and suffers from depression and an addiction to amphetamines.
 
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