Joe Thomas, Highest Paid OL in the NFL in 2018

[lionslicer]

18 hours ago, RuskieTitan said:

I remember during the draft he was out fishing and didn't seem to care at all about the whole NFL draft day process.

Could just be a guy who doesn't really care about the game of football, but understands he's got the skill-set for it to make a good living for his family.

Some guys live and breath football and love it; others view it as just a job to make an income.

I have no input on whether Joe cares about football or not, but I remember an interview I heard with Warren Sapp about his time with the Raiders where he talked about how a lot of players on those terrible Raiders' teams in the mid 2000's did not care about football at all. They only cared about how much money they were making. Sapp's time with the Raiders made him not find football fun anymore, not because of the losing, but because of how everyone around him acted and treated it as a job instead of a game.  

I think this is something most people don't really take into consideration when think about why football players make certain decisions. There's probably a lot more than we care to admit who probably don't care about winning. They're happy being good enough to note get released, but don't want to work any harder than they already are. 

[MWil23]

It's easy to troll on the Browns, goodness knows that they deserve it.

However, all this thread has done is show how ignorant a few select posters truly are. My favorites are:

*Joe Thomas is probably part of the problem in Cleveland

*Joe Thomas probably doesn't care about the game of football

[RuskieTitan]

1 hour ago, MWil23 said:

It's easy to troll on the Browns, goodness knows that they deserve it.

However, all this thread has done is show how ignorant a few select posters truly are. My favorites are:

*Joe Thomas is probably part of the problem in Cleveland

*Joe Thomas probably doesn't care about the game of football

I think it's fair to raise the point that staying in the same town probably has a higher priority than winning does for Joe Thomas, given that his preference is to stay in Cleveland and he's made no effort to try and get himself onto a team with championship aspirations. It's not meant to be an insult to the Browns, but just because a guy is a local hero and held in high regard, doesn't mean he's some sort of infallible individual who makes decisions based on loyalty and not financial reasons.

[Soko]

On 11/4/2017 at 9:37 PM, TheKillerNacho said:

There's nothing easy about leaving. Staying literally proves he doesn't care about holding the Lombardi trophy up some day... he's not exactly a young man anymore, he can't hope that the Browns become playoff contenders someday because that clearly won't happen overnight. Honestly if he really doesn't want to leave Cleveland, I don't think winning is a priority for him. Which may make him part of the problem with the culture of the Browns, tbh.

Yeah, this is pretty ridiculous. 

The Lions, Bills, Browns, Titans, Chargers, Bengals, Texans, Eagles, Jaguars, Jets, Chiefs, and Vikings haven’t won a Lombardi in the lifetime of any active NFL player’s lives. Should we say that all the players who signed contracts with those teams don’t care about winning and are contributing to their losing culture? 

There’s way more to a player’s life than a championship. Joe Thomas is quite honestly the furthest thing from an issue the Browns could have. Class act who genuinely loves the team, the fan, and hasn’t blinked a single time through all the teams’ misgivings. And you’re saying he’s a problem for them? 

No way.

 

[cddolphin]

6 hours ago, RuskieTitan said:

he's made no effort to try and get himself onto a team with championship aspirations

There are too many moving parts for players to make a reliable attempt at this. Too much parity, player / coach turnover, you can be traded or cut, you'll likely only see 3 or so years of whatever contract you sign so you're betting on a small window.. plus there's no guarantee to begin with that those so-called championship caliber teams even want you badly enough to make a real offer. This isn't the NBA.

[TheKillerNacho]

7 hours ago, MWil23 said:

It's easy to troll on the Browns, goodness knows that they deserve it.

However, all this thread has done is show how ignorant a few select posters truly are. My favorites are:

*Joe Thomas is probably part of the problem in Cleveland

*Joe Thomas probably doesn't care about the game of football

"May make him part of the problem of the culture of the Browns" does not equal "probably part of the problem in Cleveland". The first denotes a possibility of him contributing to a single problem of the Browns organization, the latter denotes a probability of contributing to all of its problems.

But like, whatever man, lol. Just don't see why he'd want to stay if winning a chip was a career priority for him, he's done his dues for Cleveland tenfold and no one would question his loyalty if he spent his final years elsewhere. Because, at this point, even he has to know the Browns aren't getting there within his remaining window.

[RuskieTitan]

11 minutes ago, cddolphin said:

There are too many moving parts for players to make a reliable attempt at this. Too much parity, player / coach turnover, you can be traded or cut, you'll likely only see 3 or so years of whatever contract you sign so you're betting on a small window.. plus there's no guarantee to begin with that those so-called championship caliber teams even want you badly enough to make a real offer. This isn't the NBA.

Big Al played out one franchise tag and had it written that he couldn't be tagged again IIRC (or if he was, that it would have been an exorbitant amount). Cousins is playing out his second year under the franchise tag, and frankly its going to be near impossible for the Redskins to tag him again for the amount it would cost.

If he wanted to join a championship caliber team, he could have merely played out his contract, gotten tagged once or twice before hitting FA, or getting traded while under the tag. Sure, it's not ideal like in the NBA, but if a player wants to play on a good team, he's more than able to reach that point if he's willing to take a financial risk aka play under a tag. Joe Thomas did not.

[Joe_Murrell]

On 11/4/2017 at 8:31 PM, lancerman said:

Everyone says this, but it sounds like he just doesn't want to leave

Then he's contented being a loser.

[DingoLadd]

18 hours ago, Joe_Murrell said:

Then he's contented being a loser.

Maybe loyalty is more important to him than wins? Maybe he enjoys the city and the fans? Maybe he actually likes being a brown strange as that sounds and doesn't want to play for another team. 

Joe Thomas is far from a loser as an NFLer, I know you mean on a losing team but still.