On Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens will celebrate their 30th year of existence.
They’ll do it the same day they take on the Cleveland Browns, who represent the city that Baltimore’s franchise escaped from in the dead of night.
It’s odd timing, to say the least.
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Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot went in-depth on this in an article Tuesday, and we’ll let her words stand for much of the vibes here:
With the Browns visiting M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday, the Ravens will celebrate 30 years since former Browns owner Art Modell crushed the hearts of Browns fans and moved the team to Baltimore.
It was a dark and horrible time in Browns history, and the Ravens will commemorate it Sunday before and during the AFC North matchup with the new iteration of the team that fled to Baltimore in 1996.
It’s a curious decision by a team that had its own beloved championship team, the Baltimore Colts, ripped out of the city in 1984 in the dark of night by then-owner Bob Irsay and moved to Indianapolis. Baltimore, which had watched the Colts win four NFL championships and a Super Bowl, had to wait 12 long years for a new team, and was only too happy to welcome Cleveland’s once-dominant, storied franchise as its own.
Celebrating 30 years of football in Baltimore is completely understandable, but to do it with the Browns in town is a bridge too far.
The Ravens are slated to have a special pregame recognition ceremony, along with a halftime show featuring Ravens legends.
They’ll also honor the 1975 Baltimore Colts on their 50th anniversary. Ironically, of course, the Colts left the city about a decade after that team’s trip to the Super Bowl.
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John Modell will be in attendance representing his late father, Art.
“No one expected Baltimore to turn down an NFL franchise just because hundreds of thousands of Clevelanders were devastated, but celebrating it Sunday with the Browns in town seems insensitive,” Cabot writes.
Maybe this year’s Browns team isn’t up to the task, but it seems the least Cleveland could do is try and spoil this party.
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