Baltimore Makes Poe Choice for Its NFL Team: the Ravens

By naming his NFL team the Ravens on Friday, Art Modell transformed it from one revered by dog-mask wearing fans in Cleveland to a franchise that draws on the literary bones of Edgar Allan Poe.

Barketh the Dawg Pound: Nevermore.

Modell announced his team’s new name on a noontime dreary before a crowd of officials and several hundred fans huddled under umbrellas at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It was 12 years to the day that the Colts deserted Baltimore in the middle of the night for Indianapolis.

“This is a new era and a new beginning for us and it will be for you,” Modell said.

Ravens, after Poe’s famous poem on the torment of lost love, beat out “Americans” and “Marauders” in a phone-in poll fans used to choose the team’s name. About two thirds of the approximately 33,000 calls received by the Baltimore Sun’s poll phone line backed the Ravens.

“The more I hear ‘Baltimore Ravens,’ the more it rolls off the tongue more easily,” Coach Ted Marchibroda said.

Not everyone was crowing about the selection of Ravens.

“I don’t like it. I don’t think it has any association with football,” former Baltimore Colt quarterback Johnny Unitas said, adding he preferred “Mustangs.”