And likewise man, it boggles my mind that an otherwise reasonable person would look at the idea of you selling your college degree to me and think that the legitimacy of that transaction would depend on a bunch of guys in a room somewhere deciding if such a thing were legal or not.

Grrrr. By swearing a lot it proves that you are a big and tough man who is very intimidating and very sure in your opinions. It certainly makes me think you are confident and self-assured and not a complete and total dope. Clearly you are obviously right and big and strong!

Hey man, I’m sure you see a ton of value in saying the same things that like, twelve other people have said so far in this thread but I’ve been at this for a while now so...nah. 

Hey man, no need to be harsh about it. Besides, I’d like to pick up a college degree. How about you sell your history to me? 

Yeah, this seems like the thing I’d be protesting about if I lived in the Middle East. 

The Ravens don’t want that history and legally gave it up.

Would it be overly pedantic of me to point out the difference between a strawman and sarcastically pointing out that you’re being a dink? Or would you need to call Roger Goodell to see if you’re allowed to think that first? 

Hey man, I get it. Who wouldn’t want the NFL to be the arbiter of all things legal and moral. You’ve put your faith in the right bunch. 

Same. Have a good one.

Wow, that is an impressive reach that still just boils down to “The NFL gets to decide what history is or isn’t” and, you know, we’re just not going to see eye to eye on that.

Right, so celebrate “Team History” all you want. Celebrate Cleveland Browns’ history all you want. “Franchise history” is a different thing. If you think Team History is the be all and end all, have at it.

I mean, we’re basically just going around in circles here but I would again refer you to other things I’ve said about how there is a clear and distinct difference between things like “team history” or “franchise history” or “history in a city”. I don’t agree that records in that vein are transferrable. Sure Modell…

Well, we’re sort of getting into semantics here but I don’t pretend those things didn’t happen. There’s just a difference between “didn’t happen” and “isn’t tabulated according to the rules of the game”. In the case of a holding penalty negating a touchdown for instance, the rules are effectively that the play is over…

Why is the contract between players and team historically relevant, but not the contract between team, league, and city?

There’s nothing unusual about an organization transferring its records and being re-founded in a new location as a totally new organization

You act like people are trying to whitewash history and erase what actually happened.

Yuh huh.

Again, I agree with all that. It’s why you can categorize history in a lot of ways. If, for instance, someone wanted to say “Who’s hit the most HR in New York Baseball History” you’d include the Giants and Mets and Dodgers and Yankees. Or, if you said, “Who’s hit the most HR in Dodgers history” you’d include their…

Again, I just don’t think history is something that can be bought and sold at someone’s discretion. It goes back to earlier but I don’t think, and you do apparently, that anyone owns history and can sell it or claim it as per their discretion.

Yeah, except that’s just not really what an expansion team is. Saying “the team folded but all the players were still under contract” is just another way of saying the team didn’t fold.