October 13, 2000|By Todd Richissin | Todd Richissin,SUN STAFF
Sure, Sunday's Ravens-Redskins clash will be on the field, Ray Lewis trying to drill Brad Johnson, Tony Banks searching to connect -- desperately, we know -- with anyone wearing a purple jersey.
Things will be intense.
But there's more to this battle than a confrontation between first-place teams, and maybe even more than the buzz -- remember that sound, Baltimore? -- among Ravens fans, who haven't had a legitimate NFL contender to root for since Jimmy Carter was president, roughly a million years ago.
This game goes beyond the sights and the sounds to some strong feelings, most of which will be concentrated Sunday in the stadium's luxury suites.
That's where Ravens owner Art Modell will sit during the game. As usual, he'll have chin in hand, looking like a grandfather whose only granddaughter is about to marry her dreamy new prison pen pal. That is, until his team scores, and then it's hugs for everyone.
And in the most luxurious suite, Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder will sit. And stand. And sit again. Over and over and over, slapping his thigh and jumping into a spin move every now and again, like a Temptation wannabe or as if he's getting an electric jolt to the tush.
Yes, Sunday will be a battle of offenses, defenses and special teams, but make no mistake: It's also about Modell vs. Snyder.
It's about the veteran vs. the upstart, the poker-faced elder vs. the strung-out junior, the NFL fixture vs. the NFL fissure.
It's about the old man vs. the young punk.
"They're from two eras with different styles, but they're both fiercely competitive," says Wellington Mara, the 84-year-old owner of the New York Giants. "It would be unnatural if they both didn't really want this one."
Oh, they really want it.
Modell has been in the league since 1961 and has only a few more seasons before he has to give up his team -- and he doesn't exactly want to lose to a second-year owner who has challenged him off the field from the get-go.
Nor is Snyder eager to lose to Modell, the type of owner whose share-the-wealth policies he questions.
How different are they?
Modell is 75, Snyder 35.
Modell drives to games in the family car. Snyder whirls to the stadium in his helicopter.
Modell's football team is his only business. Snyder's team is part of a business portfolio that has earned him the moniker "The Danny."
And the biggest difference: Modell has been pining for a Super Bowl ring just short of forever. Snyder has welded together a $100 million payroll to try to buy one in his second year.
"I want to win every game," the Ravens' owner said last week, sitting in his golf cart at his team's practice field, back hunched, forearms leaning on the steering wheel, trying to say the right things. "Of course I want to beat the Redskins."
Which aren't exactly fighting words. Modell has been around a while and doesn't want to criticize a fellow owner, even if he finds him arrogant.
But ask him about personal clashes with Snyder and his careful words are drowned out by his body language.
His hunched back straightens.
His forearms slide down the steering wheel until his hands catch it and grip it tightly.
His face freezes while the wheels inside the head whirl.
"We had run-ins like I never had in 40 years," Modell says, still treading softly. "What he was trying to do was something that for me would have been unthinkable."
What Snyder was doing: peddling his team's preseason games to Baltimore TV stations, which, if not explicitly restricted by the NFL, violated a long-standing gentleman's agreement not to butt into another owner's market.
And, Snyder had the audacity to advertise the Redskins in The Sun.
Gasp.
If Snyder's actions don't seem all so sinful, consider that since Modell bought his team nearly 40 years ago, the league's owners have operated like an excess of fingers all connected to the same hand, with teamwork and cooperation engineered to grab profits for all, to share the wealth.
Now along comes Snyder, biting the hand that has fed Modell, acting more like a lone middle finger flipping off the league. And, because of Snyder's age, the finger's more irritating than, say, that of Al Davis or Jerry Jones, the first owners to disrupt the old-boy network.
If the other owners don't like Snyder, he doesn't seem to care. And if the media don't particularly like him, well, he doesn't particularly like the media.
He doesn't grant interviews during the season anymore, not that anyone who shells out $3,000 for season tickets has a right to hear from the team owner.
"Practically speaking, he stopped doing them a couple of games into last season because he did one, then he got all kinds of calls from people wanting interviews," says his spokesman, Karl Swanson. "When he couldn't do them all, people got mad and he got burned."
Lots of people don't like him. He didn't help matters when he fired twenty-some people his first week as owner, including two secretaries who had been with the team for decades.
