Why your team sucks

[BFritz21]

(08-18-2015, 07:49 AM)JS-Steelerfan Wrote: I have already refuted it.  Several times.  

Again, you fail to grasp the difference between the team of people and the franchise.  They are not the same thing.  Let's try one more illustration to see if you can grasp it.  

If the McDonald's Corporation did not like the way that a particular owner was running one of their stores, it would be within their power to revoke that franchise from the owner,  fire the staff, and replace everybody.   The new staff and owner would now be a McDonald's, while the old staff and owner would cease to be McDonald's.   The new owner could take his old staff and create a new franchise - let's say Wendy's.  So the old group, while once McDonald's, is now Wendy's.  That is because - and this is the point you fail to grasp -  the franchise and the group of people who run it (even the owner!) are not synonymous.  The people (again, even the owners)  are granted the franchise by a larger corporate entity.  They are not the franchise itself, and the larger corporate entity always has the right to take the franchise back.  That's the way franchise works.  

So in this illustration, the NFL is the McDonald's  Corporation, Modell is the owner, the players and coaches are the staff, and the Browns are the store/franchise.  The circumstances behind the switch are different (mutual agreement rather than dissatisfaction), but the dynamic is the same.  One group of people are removed from the franchise and eventually replaced by another.  

Perhaps saying it out loud might help.  Repeat after me: the franchise and the people who run it are not the same thing.   The franchise and the people who run it are not the same thing.  The franchise and the people who run it are not the same thing.

Got it?  

So, here's the deal: Modell agreed to start a new franchise.  He didn't just agree to change the name.  He agreed to stop being the owner of the Browns (McDonald's) and start being the owner of the Ravens (Wendy's), and he took his 'staff' with him.  They had negotiations.  Signed contracts.  The whole works.  You can't just say 'Well, he only agreed to change the name', because that's not what happened!  He willfully surrendered McDonald's and took on Wendy's.  

The group of people he took with him did, at one time, work for the franchise that won those championships.  That is the only connection they had because none of them had any personal role in that history - it happened before most of them were born!!   And when they became the Ravens, they stopped working for the organization that had won those championships.  Simple as that. That's because (let's say it together again one more time): the franchise and the people who run it are not the same thing.

No, he only surrendered McDonald's and took on Wendy's (Ravens) because of the lawsuit, without which they'd still be the McDonald's (Browns) and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

That analogy is a bad one because Modell owned the entire corporation (franchise), not just one store.

It's like this:  the original Browns won those championships, and every season and move that they made resulted in the Ravens franchise, so you can't just say "oh, we had nothing to do with them and no connection at all, but we won them."

If those belong to the Browns, in what way did they shape the current Browns?  If it's part of the Browns' history, than it had to have some sort of trickle effect, right?  History shapes who you currently are.  

Explain to me how the former Browns shaped the new franchise and I'll admit being wrong.  

(08-18-2015, 08:35 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: the NFL declared that the Browns organization would be deactivated in 1996 for three years. It was reactivated in 1999 as an expansion team that would continue the franchise.

Before you argue something about teams, please see JS's very great post in which he distinguished between the two for you.

I read it four times over and skimmed parts a few more times.

It's not as simple as "they were just deactivated and then reactivated" because the franchise left and, no, in this case, that's not different from just the team leaving because, as I've pointed out many times, the only thing that Cleveland kept was the name.  If not for a lawsuit and a technicality, we're not even having this discussion.

If those championships belong to the Browns, then explain how those championships, and the entire former Browns, shaped who the Browns are today.