while Modell said it was the right move and asked fans to "bear with us." Fans brought out grills and set fire to their season tickets. A 20-year-old student at Baldwin–Wallace College picketed outside the team's training facilities with a sign that read, "Cut Belichick, Not Bernie." Cleveland won only two of the eight games after Kosar's release, finishing with a 7–9 record for the second year in a row. Cleveland managed to right the ship in 1994. While the quarterback situation had not stabilized, the defense led the league in fewest points allowed. The Browns finished 11–5, making the playoffs for the first time in five years. The Browns beat the Patriots in a wild-card game, but arch-rival Pittsburgh won a 29–9 victory in the divisional playoff, ending the Browns' season. Modell's Move to Baltimore As the Browns recaptured a hint of past success in 1994, all was not well behind the scenes. Modell was in financial trouble. The origins of Modell's woes dated to 1973, when he worked out a deal to lease Cleveland Municipal Stadium from the city for a pittance: only enough to service the facility's debt and pay property taxes. Cleveland Browns Stadium Corporation, or Stadium Corp., a company Modell and a business associate created and owned, held the 25-year lease. Stadium Corp. then subleased the stadium to the Browns and the Cleveland Indians, and rented it out for concerts and other events. While the deal worked fine for the city and Modell early on, the owner was later dogged by excessive borrowing and lawsuits. When the stadium was profitable, Modell had used Stadium Corp. to buy land in Strongsville that he had previously acquired as the potential site for a future new stadium. Modell originally paid $625,000 for the land, but sold it to his own Stadium Corp. for more than $3 million. Then, when the stadium was taking losses in 1981, he sold Stadium Corp. itself to the Browns for $6 million. This led to a fight the following year with Bob Gries, whose family had been part of the Browns' ownership group since its founding and had 43% of the team to Modell's 53%. Gries's complaint was that Modell treated the Browns and Stadium Corp. as his own fiefdom, rarely consulting him about the team's business. The sale of Stadium Corp. to the Browns, he argued, enriched Modell at the team's expense.