The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Ravens rivalry is news to Landry
Now Jarvis Landry understands what all the fuss is about.
The Browns 26-year-old wide receiver was just a toddler when former Browns owner Art Modell stood on a makeshift stage in Baltimore on Nov. 6, 1995, and announced he was moving his team from Cleveland to Baltimore starting in the 1996 season.
Landry is in his first season with the Browns. He wasn’t aware of the franchise move and how Browns fans relentlessly fought to force the NFL to return football to Cleveland until Dec. 27 when reporters in the Browns’ locker room in Berea informed him.
“So really the Cleveland team became the Baltimore Ravens?” Landry asked.
Yes, he was told, and then the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2000.
“That hurt, didn’t it?” he said. “That hurt. That’s your championship.”
Browns fans do believe the 2000 Super Bowl championship should belong to Cleveland, and that makes the Ravens winning it sting even more.
That brief banter brings Landry up to speed on the dilemma facing Browns fans. If the Browns win in Baltimore on Dec. 30, they will in all likelihood knock the Ravens out of playoff contention and make the Steelers AFC North champions in the process. All the Steelers would have to do is beat the Bengals in Pittsburgh the same day. Both games begin at 4:25 p.m. But if the Browns don’t win, they will open the playoff door for Baltimore.
The fact Landry didn’t know about the Browns’ history with the Ravens (He likewise was unaware the Indianapolis Colts were once the Baltimore Colts) says as much about the Browns’ coaching staff as it does about Landry being too young to remember how moving the original move rocked the entire NFL.
Rivalries are bigger for fans than they are for players or coaches. At least it has been that way since free agency began in 1993.
Landry played four seasons with Miami in the AFC East before being acquired by the Browns via trade in March. He really can’t be expected to understand the feeling fans have toward the Steelers and Ravens after less than one year in Cleveland. Coaches don’t use it as motivation because the rivalry doesn’t move the needle for most players.
“At the end of the day, they’re the next team,” offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens said. “We try to focus on who the next team is. We started worrying about the Ravens this week. We try to say they’re just gray faces. It doesn’t matter. It’s all about us. That’s the way we’re going to keep it this week.
“The biggest thing for us is to go out and finish the season strong – finish with a winning record. We’re going to lay it all on the field and see where it lays.”
Baker Mayfield learned about the rivalry while in college at Oklahoma because the late Orlando Brown, the father of former Sooners tackle Orlando Brown, Jr., played for the Browns and Ravens in a career that spanned nine seasons. The younger Brown told Mayfield about it.
“I’m pretty familiar with the story,” Mayfield said. “It makes the history and this rivalry interesting. I think that makes it fun. It makes it passionate for the fans and something worth watching, especially when we’re going to try to make this rivalry competitive again.”
The Browns are going for their first series sweep of the Ravens since 2007.