Almost after the season ending win at Memorial Stadium; he began talking to other cities about moving the club. On February 13th he toured the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. The Colts also spoke to officials in Phoenix, as the Maryland legislature tried to use eminent domain laws to force the franchise to remain in Maryland. On March 28th he kept the move secret until just after midnight when by cover of darkness he used Mayflower moving trucks to pack up the Colts offices and relocate them in Indianapolis. By the time anyone realized what had happened it was too late to stop.
Maryland put up a futile fight before the Colts agreed to support Baltimore getting an expansion team. The city of Baltimore would fail in several attempts at landing a NFL franchise, and even entered the CFL, before landing a new NFL franchise named the Ravens in 1996, over 11 years later. However, the Irsay family would not relinquish the name Colts, as they once promised. Many Colt legends were angered by the move including legendary Quarterback Johnny Unitas who refused to acknowledge the franchise for the rest of his life.
Its really really hard to feel sorry for the Browns, given what happened to the Colts. .
You will find that the huge majority of Browns fans think that the deal we got should be the standard for any future franchise move, and indeed should have been applied to the Houston situation and retroactively to the Baltimore situation.
It also should be noted that Baltimore would likely have beaten out Jacksonville for the 1993 expansion team if not for the efforts of art modell, who clearly was trying to keep that option open for himself.
Since the modell has been flushed out of the current organization, you’ll find that we have much more of a continuing issue with that family than the city and fans of Baltimore, with the exception of those fans who continue to defend the modells (still a significant minority).
-Eric