Super Bowl XXXVII Raiders entered the game favored to win in their first Super Bowl in 19 years. They were also the first franchise to appear in the Super Bowl in four decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s; the 1990s was the only decade that they did not appear in the Super Bowl). However, much of the media hype surrounded the Gruden trade prior to the season. This forced league commissioner Paul Tagliabue to issue a statement that he might ban all future trades for coaches involving draft choices because it might compromise the draft. A distraction for the Raiders was that starting center
Super Bowl XXXV in Cleveland, and a new Browns team would begin play in 1999 after a three-year period of "deactivation". As the Browns finished with a 3–13 record in 2000, many Browns fans were upset that the Ravens were in the Super Bowl, although Matt Stover, Rob Burnett, and Larry Webster were the only players from the Cleveland days remaining with the Ravens when they won the Super Bowl. Officially, the win made the Ravens the quickest expansion team in NFL history to win a Super Bowl, although much like the 1950 Browns winning the NFL Championship in their first season in