If one were to create a Mount Rushmore of players who gave Hall of Fame-worthy efforts to their teams and their fans, in exchange for absolutely nothing, Browns legend Joe Thomas would be your George Washington, the first face you see.
While Thomas’ prowess on the field was obvious to all, it was less obvious why an All-Pro-level player would keep playing for a team synonymous with failure. Why wouldn’t he demand a trade? Why wouldn’t he take advantage of the many teams that would have parted with any number of high draft picks to trade for his services and give him a real chance to win it all?
Instead of remaining a prisoner of futility year after year.
In a recent interview on Bussin’ with the Boys, Thomas not only spoke about how he fooled himself about the Browns’ potential, but also about the heartbreaking loss to Tom Brady that triggered an emotional breakdown and forced him to confront reality.
“The way I entered every season was like, if I need to get the most out of myself, I’ve got to convince myself this is a Super Bowl roster,” Thomas said in the interview. “That’s the mentality I have to have when I’m training, when I’m practicing, when I’m going through film study. And so you trick yourself every year, but after a while, you’re not that dumb anymore.”
How did Tom Brady fit into this? And bring him to the breaking point? That wouldn’t come until year ten.
“Then, about midway through that 10th season, we were playing the Patriots. Tom Brady comes to town, and I fucking hated Tom Brady, as everybody did in the league. I hated the Patriots. I just wanted to smash him so bad. We lost like 30 to 0. And I remember sitting in the car after the game, and I was just crying. I had ice on both elbows and knees. I was in pain, my wife was driving, and I was just looking out the window. It was that moment when I realized I’d been kind of fooling myself for a while, and we were not going to win no matter what I did.
“She finally said, ‘Are you okay? Did you have a bad game?’ Then the tears really came because I said, ‘I played a perfect game, and we lost by 30.’ It really sunk in at that moment that you don’t control the situation anymore. That feeling of loss of control is really hard. No matter what situation you’re in in life, it just feels like everything I’m working for, I have no control over the outcome. That’s a bad feeling.”
Thomas went on to explain that heartbreak resulted in meetings with the team psychologist and the eventual realization that the knowledge of the Browns’ hopeless state would prevent him from convincing himself that he had a chance at a Lombardi Trophy, something necessary for him to compete at a high level.
The 2023 Hall of Fame inductee explained, “Because it had been almost 10 years built up to that moment when you come to the realization that I’m kind of fooling myself. We’re not that team, and we really don’t have a chance.”
In many ways, Thomas is the archetype, the player every fan wishes he had: A Hall of Fame talent with loyalty to match. The latter being the much rarer commodity in today’s football landscape. But while fans, not the last of whom are Browns fans, will celebrate the loyalty Thomas showed to Cleveland, no one should labor under the illusion that that type of loyalty doesn’t come with a price.