Looking forward to this episode of a football life. Bill Belichick and the Cleveland Browns made the playoffs in 1994. Who did they lose to?? Bill Parcells and the New England Patriots. After being fired by Cleveland once they decided to move and start in a new city with a new coach, Belichick reunites with Bill Parcells as his defensive co-ordinator for the Patriots in 1996. The result?? They make it all the way to Super Bowl XXXI. However, what would have happened had the Browns not announced they were moving and demoralizing the fanbase and the team?? If you look at the coaching staff that Belichick had amassed, they were eventually going to get the players to make it work. Current Alabama coach Nick Saban was on that staff as well.
The move of the team gutted the heart of all of Ohio, not just Cleveland. Yet it was this move that also taught where the NFL Championship Trophy was. Since the league mandated the Browns colors and memorabilia stay behind, this included the trophies won by the team. As the officials looked for the championship trophies from the 50’s and 1964, they couldn’t find them. Well, conferring with the Pro Football Hall of Fame they came to find out the NFL championship trophy moved around on a rotating basis. The champion held it like the championship belt of a prize fighter. So after winning it all in 1964, they defended their title in Green Bay for the 1965 championship. Well Green Bay won 23-12, in Jim Brown’s last game and kept the trophy. With the following season, 1966, the Super Bowl ushered in the era of a new trophy each season for the winner to keep.
Many, many reasons to watch this interesting story.
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