1995 Cleveland Browns season

The 1995 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 50th season overall and 46th in the National Football League. It ultimately became their final NFL season until 1999, their final season at Cleveland Stadium, and Bill Belichick's final year as Browns head coach. The team finished 5–11, fourth in the AFC Central, though most of the season was overshadowed by the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy. The team was documented in NFL Network's A Football Life.^[1]

After finishing 11–5 in 1994 and winning a playoff game for the first time since 1989, the Browns were favored by many to reach Cleveland's first ever Super Bowl.^[2] The Browns started by winning three of their first four games and were 4–4 halfway through the season. On November 6, the day after the Browns recorded their fifth loss, a 37–10 blowout against the Oilers, owner Art Modell announced that he intended to move the team to Baltimore at the end of the season. Stunned by this news, the team collapsed and only won one of their remaining seven games and Belichick was fired after the season.

As part of the agreement reached in February 1996 to allow Modell to move, the city of Cleveland was allowed to keep the Browns name, franchise history and all memorabilia and agreed to build a new stadium by 1999. In return, Modell was allowed to take the player contracts from the Browns, as well as the bulk of his organization, to Baltimore, but his franchise, later named the Baltimore Ravens, would be considered a 1996 expansion team. The NFL agreed that the Browns would be reactivated no later than 1999, by way of an expansion draft or relocated team.