Joe Thomas: Pro Football Hall of Famer

29:08And I'd never been to New York before. And I was like, that's a big, scary place. Why would I want to go to New York? Like, that's where people go to die. Like, this is, I can't do this. And on top of that, it was like the pre-draft process is very intense. And the combine and the pro day and the workouts and the interviews you do. And it's very busy. and kind of the draft weekend can be that last moment that you have sort of in your life that you've become accustomed to for the last four or five years if you're just in college there. Or for me, I was living in Wisconsin my whole life up to that point.

29:49I think I was 22 years old. And so once you get drafted, you immediately get whisked away to the city that drafts you and immediately start your new life because you go right into OTA practices and mini camp practices and you buy a house or you rent an apartment right away and then you get a couple weeks off in the summer and then you're back into the season and your old life is gone. And so your last kind of opportunity to spend some time with your family and your old life is right around the draft. and so I didn't want to miss that opportunity to be able to enjoy an afternoon fishing with my dad which is something that we had done growing up a ton of times on Lake Michigan I mean especially before I really got deeply involved in sports that was like every Saturday my dad would wake me up at 3 34 in the morning and I'd jump in the back of the car and fall asleep in the car we get to the lake I get in the boat I'd fall asleep in the boat and he'd wake me up as soon as we started catching fish.

30:51And so the memories that I had doing that and knowing that life was about to change, I wanted to just really enjoy that with my family. And so it was more a way to kind of shun the spotlight and shun kind of the attention of the NFL draft. And it was funny that it kind of turned into more of an attention thing than I expected. and then maybe even more than if I would have gone to the draft because nobody would be talking about me on draft day if I would have gone to the draft. But since I didn't go, it became a story unintentionally. And so it's kind of funny how those things happen, but I definitely don't regret being there on the boat that day because I had a really fun day, and it looked like those guys at the draft were sweating it out.

31:38What did the NFL say when they found out you were declining? It was so funny because obviously they have a huge vested interest in getting the players there, right? I mean, basically they have millions of viewer audience that are watching this show, and they need characters in their show. They need actors. And so they need cheap actors. And what's better than cheap actors is free actors. And they get all these players to show up for free, and then they become part of the soap opera of the NFL, which is great for some guys. The guy that goes first overall and holds that jersey up, he's happy. His family's there.

32:20Everyone gives him the pat on the back, and he gets to hug the commissioner or has to hug the commissioner now. But then there's the guy that just plummets in the draft, and he's there sweating it out, and he's got five cameras in his face. Your teammate, once teammate Brady Quinn. Exactly. And a couple years before that, Aaron Rodgers. And I saw that, and that left an impression on me. you know for for them to abuse a player like that that's doing that for free uh i thought was it was really tough and i was like at that time a young guy i was thinking to myself too i don't know if i could handle that i mean that would be emotionally crushing i mean you become the story of the draft and your failure is the story of the draft and that becomes the reason people watch the draft is to watch you sweat that sounds terrible for free right can't believe it if you knew you were going to go number one would you have gone no okay like even that like i i could see the guy that really loves attention you know would want to be on tv get his face up there maybe get his nike commercial or his under armor commercial or snickers or whatever he wants to sell, you know, that's great for him.

33:34That's just not exactly who I am. But back to your original question. I know I'm really going off a tangent here. So that means you're saying if the guy the Browns draft first overall this year goes to the draft, he's an attention seeker. There's a lot of them out there these days, you know. There was no social media when I was a rookie, so these kids are a little different these days. So describe the moment when you're on the outfishing with your dad of getting the call? Well, it was a fun day, but it was interesting because originally my plan was I was going to go hunting because I just didn't want any cameras around.

34:11I wanted just to kind of get away from it. I was just kind of burned out from the whole pre-draft process. I just wanted to play football. I was like, I don't care where I go. I just want to get it over with and just start working on becoming a rookie and having the best rookie season that I can have. and my agent's like you can't do that they need to be able to call you before they draft you because I guess many years ago one team accidentally drafted a player that had passed away and so now they want to make sure when five minutes before they draft you they want to call you and make sure you're alive first of all and they also want to make sure that nothing has changed in your situation since the last time they talked to you which was probably a couple days ago they want to make sure that on if the drafts Saturday on Friday night you didn't go out and go to the bar and get arrested for beating somebody up and now they're drafting you and uh you're you've got an arrest on your record that they don't know about right so they need to be able to contact you so he was like you can't go hunting by yourself like you can't do it so I was like well can I go fishing he's like well if you can have self-service and if you can listen to the draft and the radio to kind of listen along.

35:27So on the boat that we were on, they had the radio on and they got like XM radio or something where they could get the draft on there. So we could listen to the draft and I had a cell phone and we had to kind of troll in the boat close enough to cell phone towers where if they needed to call me, we could pick it up. But I did want to answer your question about what the NFL thought because it's kind of interesting. So Gil Brandt, who is a legendary NFL scout for the Cowboys and now he works for the NFL and the combine and all that stuff. Great guy, great scout, but he was kind of in charge of deciding who gets to go to the draft.

36:05And at that time, it was five players maybe. And so I was one of the five players selected, and they sent you the letter from Gil, and it's, hey, congratulations, you're going to come to the draft on behalf of the NFL. Great job, buddy. And I was like, okay, no, I'm not. So I just threw the letter away or whatever. And a couple weeks later, I'm getting all these calls from this number from, I don't even know where it was from, and I pick it up, and it's Gil, and he's like, you have to come to the draft? Nobody's ever turned it down. And I kind of try to give him the explanation. I'm just not somebody that seeks attention or the spotlight, and so it just doesn't appeal to me, and I'm just going to spend the day with my family, just kind of low-key.

36:42I don't want to have a big party. I mean, I like the party, but I'm not like the guy that wants to have 100 people over watching TV, and you know I got drafted because to me the draft was just the entry into the NFL it wasn't the event that I'd been planning my whole life which kind of goes back to I never really thought I was going to be in the NFL so I never dreamed of being drafted so that wasn't like a big day to me to me the draft was a non-event it was it was I want to be with my team to get ready to play football because rookie year is kind of when your career starts and I want to be a great NFL player.

37:18I don't care about where I'm drafted. But anyway, so he kind of like hung up and I get a call like three days later and now they're getting more upset. They're like, you have to come. Nobody's ever turned it down, you know. And then it started turning into the teams are going to think you're a prima donna and they're not going to want to draft you anymore because you're shunning the draft. And they tried to turn it into like me seeking attention or me trying to who pull something on the NFL or being anti-establishment or whatever they were trying to accuse me of being to try to coerce me into showing up at the draft.

37:53And I really thank my agent, Peter Schaefer, for just being real upfront about it and saying, look, these guys are just BSing you. They're just doing what they can to try to get you there because they need the actors for their TV show to show up so that they can sell tickets and get people to watch on TV. So they need you guys there, but you don't have to go. I'm like, well, I don't want to go. Who was saying that? It was coming from Gil Brandt. I'm not sure it was coming. I mean, it was coming from the people at the NFL who were saying, hey, Gil, it's your responsibility to get these guys there.

38:24And so they were coming up with every excuse in the book on why I had to go to the draft or teams. I'd be undraftable. My agent's like, no. If anything, teams are going to respect it. You're not all in it thinking that the draft is the end of your career, that you're just thinking of the draft as a non-event and you're excited about being a rookie and playing in the NFL and being great in the NFL. So you're out on the boat. You're trying to keep close to cell towers. You're listening to it on the radio. And, you know, how did you find out? So the Browns called me, and thankfully we were close enough to cell service that we could get the call.

39:07but Jamarcus Russell went first overall to Oakland. I'd heard the day before that we weren't going to go first overall and that it was either going to be Detroit or Cleveland and if Cleveland didn't take me they might trade out and somebody else might trade up but we had a pretty good idea I probably wasn't going to go past number three and so I wasn't listening too intently with the first pick because we kind of knew it was it wasn't going to be be it would be either be Calvin Johnson or Jamarcus Russell was kind of the scuttlebutt on the street. And so once Detroit was on the clock with the second pick, that's when we started kind of listening, but we were still catching some fish.

39:44So I was, you know, a little preoccupied reeling my big trout in. And it was right after the second pick where Cleveland called me when they were on the clock and said, hey, you know, this is Romeo Cornell. This is Phil Savage. We want to congratulate you on becoming a Cleveland Brown. And at that point, you know, I was, woohoo, We were hooping it up and high-fiving. And at that point, my agent called, and he said, hey, we need to get back to shore because Cleveland's flying you as soon as you can to Cleveland for a press conference. And so at that moment, the whirlwind started, and it was just as crazy as I expected it right after that.

40:23Emotional? A little bit, but it wasn't unexpected. So I think that kind of tempered the emotion a little bit. What was it like the first time playing at Lambeau Field? It was emotional for me. Growing up in Wisconsin, I was a big Packer fan my whole life. I'd only been able to go to one or two Packer games because tickets are so difficult to get in Wisconsin, especially in the 90s because the Packers won the 96-97 Super Bowl, and they went to the next Super Bowl, and they were just a great team in the late 90s with Reggie White and Brett Favre and multiple Hall of Famers on that team. Favre was kind of as close to an idol as you ever had, right?

41:08Oh, absolutely. For me, Brett Favre, Reggie White, those guys were gods when I was a kid because every Sunday I'd watch the Packers with my dad. Right after church, we'd race home and we'd sit down on the couch, and that was the only TV I got to watch during the week, and it was awesome. I mean, it was a real family experience. And so the couple times I did get to go to Lambeau Field, it was like, this is your coming into adulthood moment. Like, my dad and his buddies brought me into the fold, and I got to go to their tailgate and, like, go to the game with them. And I remember the first game I went to was actually a playoff game against the Vikings.

41:45It was the game that Randy Moss scored a touchdown and pulled his pants down, or pretended to, and, like, wiped his butt on the goalpost. And we were sitting, like, way up in the nosebleeds. And I remember leading over to my dad and saying, hey, dad, what did he do? Why did he get a penalty? And my dad was like, I'm not sure what happened, son. You know, even though I'm sure he saw it, he just didn't want to have to explain to his 14-year-old kid what this guy was doing. But it was an amazing experience. So then when I finally got the opportunity as a player to come back to Lambeau and play there, there was just an emotional feeling just walking out of that tunnel.

42:20And that was kind of living a childhood dream. because I think anybody that grows up in Wisconsin dreams of playing for the Packers, just like any kid that grows up in northern Ohio dreams of being a Cleveland Brown and walking out of that tunnel at First Energy Stadium. You've been to 10 straight Pro Bowls. What does that mean to you? I think, you know, when it's all said and done, it'll be special. and it's special to me to have double-digit Pro Bowls because it's something so few people have done. And I think it's almost the most special to me to be able to be in the same breath with some of the legends that have played in Cleveland that have achieved those same similar number of Pro Bowls.

43:13And the two guys that come to mind are Jim Brown and Lou Groza. which are two of the greatest names in football history and probably will live on for another 100 years as some of the greatest names in football history. And so to have my name in that category just because of the Pro Bowl selections, it's special. And I think when I'm done and retired in 10 or 15 years, you look back on that and think about that accomplishment. How many consecutive snaps have you played? That's a good question. Actually, I don't know the exact number because it's not an official stat. It's almost like a tackle stat.

43:58For people that follow football closely, they understand that tackles are stats that are kept by the teams. So it's not like a sack or a catch or anything like that. It's not an NFL stat. So nobody really has a good exact number. The Browns tried to tabulate it this year, and so they thought it was somewhere right around 10 ,000. Right. But it's not an official stat that we have tabulated. And to give that context, that's every single snap that you could have played for 10 years. Right, exactly. So on average, you play about 1 ,000 snaps in a season, roughly 68 to 72 per game, and then over a 16-game season.

44:43It roughly comes out to right around 1 ,000. So throughout my career, every season has been about 1 ,000 snaps. And what does it mean to you to have never missed one? To me, that's kind of special because I think I've kind of prided myself on durability and toughness throughout my career, even going back to college and high school. And so I think that statistic is kind of a sense of pride for me. Give me the step-by-step when your first-year head coach sends a backup into a game to pull you out. Well, it was interesting because I think it was my eighth season. And I would say the first five or six years you go by and you don't miss a snap.

45:28But it's not really mentionable because it's just not that rare. I mean, plenty of people do it every year. So it's not the most rare thing in the world. But by about year six or seven, people started taking notice that I hadn't missed a snap. And so by year eight, I knew that I hadn't missed a snap. And it was kind of a streak that I was interested in preserving. And rightfully so. Rightfully so. I mean, there's no reason to just leave a game unless you have to at that point. And we were playing the Steelers. And we started the season really, really hot. And it was one of the first games in my career where we were actually blowing the opponent out.

46:09Usually we're the ones getting blown out. So it was a nice change of pace. And my coach started subbing some of the better players on the team outs because he didn't want them to get hurt at the end of a blowout game. And, you know, of course I'm out there and I see the backup left tackle running onto the field at a timeout. I'm looking over there like, who got hurt? Like, what's going on? And he comes over and stands next to me and says, hey, Joe, I got you. And I'm like, you don't got me. I'm like, get the f*** out of here. And he's like, you know, and that poor guy, you know, he's just following orders.

46:45He's like, I don't know what to do. So he's asking everybody on the line, hey, can I get you? Can I get you? And everyone's like, no, no, get out of here. Get out of here. So, of course, he had to turn around and sprint his little butt back to the sideline. And the coach is like, what's going on? And, you know, I don't think it was until after the game that the coach realized that, I had a streak that I didn't want to destroy just because we were winning a game. And so I'm glad I did that. But I could also see myself just following instructions and turning around and running off the field without even thinking about it.

47:18And that would have been devastating. You know, it probably would have in hindsight, especially now knowing that I made it 10 years without missing a snap. What did the coach say to you the first time you interacted? It was funny. I think somebody on the sideline may have told him right towards the end of the game. And so by the time the game was over, he came up to me and just said, Hey, Joe, I'm so sorry. I didn't know you had a streak going. We were just trying to get you out of there because our center actually had gotten hurt in the game already. And he said, we're winning the game. I don't want anybody to get hurt unnecessarily.

47:48You're obviously so statistically accomplished and the best at your position and will go down as one of the all-time NFL greats. Um, explain the difference though, in notoriety you would receive if you were statistically as accomplished as a quarterback. Uh, it would be a little bit different. I'm happy that I'm not because I do like flying under the radar a little bit. Um, but certainly as a quarterback, you wonder, you know, if I was as gifted at quarterback as I am as a left tackle, you probably wouldn't be walking through the grocery store the way I do now, kind of unnoticed. So certainly there would be some benefits, but I do enjoy some ambiguity a little bit.

48:41To what extent at times does it ever bother you that maybe you don't get the mainstream recognition that you've rightly earned or, you know, deserve based on your success? I think as a lineman, you've kind of been groomed to have a little chip on your shoulder and kind of appreciate working through the dirty, hard times and not getting any credit for it. There's a saying that offensive line are mushrooms. It's considered a mushroom society because everyone wants to throw us in a dark room and throw shit on us every day, and then they expect us to bloom into something that's delicious. and that's kind of how they treat the linemen.

49:29They, you know, shove you in the corner of the practice field. You get your little five-yard-by-five-yard square and they throw a couple toys at you and you just push the sleds around all day. Meanwhile, the skilled guys are out in the field taking up half of the field, running their routes and getting all the cameras in their faces. They're making the over-the-shoulder catches. And when things go great, the quarterback's the first guy that gets the pat on the back and the receiver gets the hug. And the defensive end that made the game-winning sack gets lifted up and carried off the field and nobody remembers the O-line until you're the one that's giving up the sack that loses the game and then you're the goat and you're the reason that we lost and we need to get you out of here and so I think the business that we're in we have to kind of accept that and and that we have to almost embrace sort of that mushroom society and so I I feel like I'm definitely one of the guys that has done that.

50:23I mean, they don't pay attention to you until, I mean, you almost force them to pay attention to you. So, I mean, how have you seen that start to change as you're only having more and more success, becoming more and more accomplished? It's been interesting, to say the least, because, like you said, as a lineman, you only get noticed when you do something bad. typically. And so as the Pro Bowls kind of have stacked up and the accolades have kind of come in from that perspective, it does come with some attention. And it is difficult at times handling it. But I think I try to have fun with it sometimes as well and try to enjoy some aspects of it.

51:11So that has been kind of fun. What do you find difficult about it? You know, just the attention when you're, you know, just want to hang out with your family or when you're... For me, I just kind of like a lot of just time with my friends and my family, just low-key stuff. I just like being an everyday regular guy. And so sometimes as you have more success in the NFL, it becomes a little bit more difficult to just be a normal regular guy. What do you think is responsible for your success? Well, I've got to thank my parents because certainly my DNA that they've given me was a predominant factor in my success.

51:59I don't think there's many 5 '8 offensive linemen, especially left tackles out there. So being 6 '6", 300 pounds has certainly been a big benefit. And your kids are going to be so much. My kids are going to be large as well. Your wife's 6 '1". Kids are going to be similarly large. But I think, too, the work ethic and the toughness that they ingrained in me from when I was a kid certainly would have a big impact on the type of football player that I've become. To what extent does fear of failure still motivate you? It's funny because I think that fear of failure must have been bred in me or was innate growing up.

52:43And it wasn't until college and the pros when I started talking to other players on the offensive line that have had a lot of success or coaches that have coached guys that have a lot of success. And they talk about what motivates them. And almost to a man, every one of them is motivated by the fear of failure. The fear of being the reason you lost. Or the fear of being the one that everybody on the team looks at and says, we need to get rid of this guy. And I think in a large part that was always my motivating factor. And I think that's what kind of separates offensive linemen maybe from a lot of the other positions.

53:23Because we're judged by our lack of failure. So the more lack of failure we have, the better of a player we are. Whereas if you're a receiver or a defensive end or a linebacker, you're only measured by the number of successes you have in a game. So if an offensive lineman has 70 snaps and I do 68 pancake blocks, perfect blocks, and then I give up two sacks at the end of the game with the game on the line, the fans and the coaches are going to be calling for my head at the end of a game. And nobody saw the 68 plays where I completely dominated my player. But as a defensive end, I could be getting my butt whipped for 68 plays, but I make the one sack at the end of the game that seals the victory, and I'm the player of the game.

54:12And so I think sort of a mindset that you have to have as an offensive lineman is I am so afraid of at any moment getting beat that it motivates me to be perfect on every play. 47 wins, 112 losses, six different head coaches, 18-ish starting quarterbacks during your 10 seasons with Cleveland. How do you handle so much losing? Well, it's been really tough. Especially early in my career, it was really difficult because I came from a program at Wisconsin that didn't lose much. My senior year, we only lost one game. But learning how to rebound from losing was probably the hardest thing that I had to do in the NFL because, especially during my rookie season, it was very difficult to put everything you have into a game and not get the results, and then turn around two days after the game and be ready to dive into the next week of preparation with all your energy and enthusiasm and positivity that you need to prepare for an NFL game the next week.

55:21So I think kind of learning how to bounce back was one of the most important things in my career. Well, and there was an interesting quote. There was an ESPN profile that was written on you, and I'm sure you read it, but the quote was, there is something romantic or maybe maniacal about a man who comes to work every day, pours his heart and soul into preparing for a game, and does so well that he grades off the charts, but loses that game nearly every week and still comes back every Monday for more. Yeah, I'm disturbed for sure. Yeah, I don't know. It's

56:01the hardest thing in pro sports is to lose an NFL game because there's so few of them. In basketball, you play a game every night. You lose tonight, oh well, we got another game tomorrow. And the preparation is just so different. In baseball, what do they practice a couple times in the spring and then take batting practice during the year? But other than that, you just Just go play. There's not a lot of preparation involved in football. You literally put an entire week's worth of work into every single game. And we're not talking about a 40-hour work week. We're talking about a 60-70 hour work week, you know, 10 to 20 hours of film study on your opponent alone for that week.

56:40And you put your entire heart and soul emotionally, physically, mentally in a game and then to come up short, sometimes through no fault of your own. And it's something that's difficult for the human mind to wrap themselves around, especially in most sports where you have a great deal of influence over the outcome. How does it affect you, the losing still to this day? Well, I think it's really hard Monday and it's really hard on Tuesday, but I think I've programmed myself enough where each week is like its own year in my life. And so a loss on the first week won't affect my second week of play because I kind of have a two-day rule.

57:29So Monday you feel horrible, Tuesday you feel horrible. But by the time I wake up on Wednesday morning, I've programmed and demanded on myself that I have forgotten about what happened the week before. I've taken the lessons away that I need to take, but now I'm completely focused on the next week. To what extent, even if not for you, do you think mediocrity almost has become normal or acceptable to some? Well, I think it's easy for some people to just accept their situation. And it's important in the NFL to constantly be striving for improvement, no matter who you are. No matter if you're Tom Brady or if you're the last person on the roster.

58:20I think it's important to understand that if you're not improving, you're getting worse every season. That's just the way the NFL is. Nobody stays the same. So if you don't think you're improving, you're probably the one that's getting worse. So I think even going into year 11 for me, I feel like I've got this list of things that I want to improve on. And I'm going to work all offseason and all during the season and try to get better at those things. If it got to a point in Cleveland where you knew you just couldn't win and you had the opportunity to play for a team that you knew had the legitimate shot at making it to the Super Bowl, how much consideration would you give that?

59:07I guess each opportunity is kind of its own entity that you would have to consider. But I don't know if the NFL is as black and white as fans sometimes think it is. A lot of times fans think like, oh, the Browns, you'll never win. And oh, the Packers or the Patriots or whoever, oh, they'll definitely go to the Super Bowl every year. But the predictability of the NFL just isn't there to me. and I guess maybe it's the eternal optimist in me, but I start every Cleveland Browns season thinking, you know, we got a pretty good chance. Like this really could be our year to turn it around. And to me, it would just mean so much more to be part of building a champion, not just riding the coattails of a champion.

59:53You see a lot of guys that flash Super Bowl rings and a lot of guys that didn't play it down the whole season. They got a Super Bowl ring, you know? Are they proud of that? I don't know. There wasn't a lot of work. I mean, there was some work that went into it, but I'm a firm believer in unless you have to give something up, what you get doesn't really mean anything. So unless you're the one that's on the field building the champion from the beginning, I don't know that a championship really has the meaning that it should. And to me, if I want to win a Super Bowl, I want to be a major part of the team that was built from the ground up.

1:00:32And I was a big piece of that puzzle. I was a big building block of that championship. You almost got traded to Denver, or at least there were serious talks. How did you feel about the Browns engaging in those talks? Doesn't bother me one bit. I'm old enough in the NFL to understand that this is a business. We are poker chips in the game of the NFL. Yeah, but at the same time, I mean, here you are. I mean, now 10-year vet Pro Bowl every year, played every snap, doing everything you can to make the team as successful as possible. You haven't, you know, asked for a trade. You've been the consummate professional, and that doesn't bother you at all?

1:01:20It doesn't because I understand that the decisions made by people running the team have emotion completely detached from it. There is no such thing as, well, he's been a great asset for our organization. He's great with the fans, so we'll keep him around. It doesn't happen. It is a fiction. It's something that fans sometimes think happens. But as soon as you cannot produce for a team, you're gone. And so as soon as they can get something out of you that maybe is more than they think your value is to the team, they're going to trade you just because you were there for a long time or have done a lot of good things for the team.

1:02:04Unfortunately, that's just not the way this business model works, and I'm okay with that. So I understand that as an asset for the Browns or a commodity, if they feel that my value being traded is greater than the value I bring to this team, they're going to trade me. And that's their fiduciary responsibility to the owner that pays them every single week. And so by engaging in trade talks, it doesn't bother me one bit because I know that it doesn't matter who you are. I guarantee Bill Belichick has thought about trading Tom Brady because he thinks he might be able to get a king's ransom. So you just you can't take it personally you can't have feelings involved in the NFL.

1:02:48It's not a Personal business. It's not personal decisions. It's just part of the business How does it make you feel when there have been a couple former teammates of yours who've said they hope you get traded to a winner? Well, it's nice of them to care about my personal interests so much and that's great. You know, there's people that say, you know, hey, you deserve to play for a winner, but my mind has always been, yeah, and it's in Cleveland and I'm going to bring the winner here. You know, there's no reason we can't do it in Cleveland. How concerned are you about the lasting impact playing could have on your brain?

1:03:29Sure, there's definitely a concern, but I think the way I look at it is just about every profession in our society there's some lasting effects and and it's just the way that our society is set up people have to work and so if I was a stonemason or if I was a painter or if I was you know building bridges or whatever there's gonna be some wear and tear on your body and your brain and that's just the way it is to be able to live the lifestyle and provide for my family that football has been able to do. To me, it's a trade-off I'm willing to accept. Right. I mean, some jobs have much worse effects than that.

1:04:16Well, I mean, look at you. You sit in a chair all day. Your hip flexors are probably short. You probably have a bad back. You probably have to have the standing desk. All that travel, can you imagine? The brain. I mean, how do you survive? The lack of oxygen up in the air? Right, exactly. I feel bad for you. Are you worried about your brain? Your wife though is concerned. I mean she told me. Well she's the one that's gonna have to deal with it. Right. Because I'm gonna be, who are you? Where did I get here? Right. But I mean she's told me like you guys will be driving and you'll get upset and she'll be like, that's it, it's starting, CTE.

1:04:53And you'll be like, no, somebody just cut me off. But I mean how do you actually handle those concerns? I think from my perspective, just kind of being good-natured about it hopefully will help. I definitely expect memory loss, I think. You do? I'm already seeing memory loss, and maybe that's just because of my old age, or maybe it's football. It's hard to tell. I mean, there's no double-blind studies when it comes to people's life. It's just, I think, a part of sometimes getting older, and it's hard to tell if it's because of football or if it's just because of, you know, you're 32 and you're not 21 anymore and you've got a lot of stuff going on in your life.

1:05:36Like what sort of memory loss? Just short-term memory loss, hard times remembering, like, things that have happened recently. Like, you know, you walk to the grocery store and you're like... Hey, Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crocs store today. This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

1:06:21With AppleCard, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, AppleCard is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, AppleCard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Huh. I can't remember what I needed to get. You know, just little stuff like that. And I think if you let it really bug you, I think it can make you depressed and feel sad.

1:07:01Like, wow, I don't have the memory I used to have. But, you know, I try to be relatively good natured about it at this point. But does it bother you a little bit? Like, not entirely sure? Yeah, maybe a little bit like, oh, you know, is this because of the football? Is that why I'm having a hard time remembering some of this stuff? Or is it just because as people get a little bit older, they have a harder time remembering things. I'm not trying to make light of guys that have really significant memory loss and dementia. Those are very, of course, serious things, and hopefully I'm not going to be there down the line.

1:07:36But I think I tell Annie, I'm like, well, if I forget who you are, just don't be mad about it. That doesn't mean I don't love you anymore. Just remind me. Just tell me what's going on. I'm okay with that. And maybe I'm making light of a serious issue, but I don't want to convince myself, worry myself too much about it right now because I think you can scare yourself. You really can because there are some obviously really terrible side effects of the brain injuries that we see from playing in the NFL as long as I have. If you're being completely transparent, what does concern you the most on that front?

1:08:22Well, I think when you look at some of the really serious side effects and diseases that have come from the brain injuries that you receive playing football, You look at guys with significant Alzheimer's and dementia and the mood swings and the suicides that, unfortunately, NFL players have been faced with and depression, Lou Gehrig's disease. These are all things that have kind of been linked to the brain damage from football. And those are obviously extremely scary and frightening things. But, you know, I think from my perspective, it's I can't do anything about it. this was the profession that I have already chosen and most of the damage has probably been done already.

1:09:09And so what are the things that I can do to try to minimize my chances of having those negative effects down the line and then do everything I possibly can. And then I just can't worry about it. I just have to accept it. But I do hope that medicine continues to improve. And so in 10 years, maybe they'll be able to fix my body better than they did for the poor guys that are crippled up from playing in the NFL in the 60s and the 70s. Explain why you don't really feel good after a Sunday game now until the following Saturday. Yeah, well, when you're in your 30s, things become more difficult when you exercise.

1:09:51And then when you're playing NFL football where you have 300-pound men that run four 740s, creating a lot of energy smashing into you 70 times in a day. You tend to get a little sore all over your body for several days. And when you're a younger man and you've got more hormones in your body, you recover much quicker and you feel much better after a game. You don't have to warm up as much. But as you get older, it just takes longer to feel better again. And how drastic a change has that been for you in terms of the recovery process from when you entered the league You know, when you're a rookie, you start feeling better after a day, maybe.

1:10:36You know, by Tuesday, you feel pretty good. But you're 22 years old, so every 22-year-old bounces back a lot quicker. When you're 32, the bounce back just takes a lot longer. It was a gradual thing, and I think it's pretty universal for most people that play in the NFL. They come in, and they feel like they're invincible. and then every year they just kind of feel like it takes a little bit more out of them every single game. How much do you practice now the last month of the season? As little as possible. I try to take the beating off of my body as much as possible towards the end of the season because, like you said, those hits do add up, and it's so much worse as you get older.

1:11:21It's better to save whatever hits you have left in your body for game day towards the end of the season. And tell what your Ferris Bueller's day is. Well, the guys like to tease me a lot because I'll take one practice day and I don't practice during the week on one day. And so I'll usually do my own workout and won't be on the field with the team. And so the guys like to tease me, especially the really super old media guys that played that like to tease me about it because they never got a day off. So they call it the Ferris Bueller day off. When do you want to play till? That's a great question.

1:11:58I always say that I want to play as long as I'm healthy, enjoying it, and playing well and somebody still wants me. Yeah, I mean, I know you're referencing your wife. I think her decision, you probably would have retired a couple years back. She certainly doesn't seem to want you playing past your current contract. What do you think of that? You know, I don't think about it too much. Oh, come on. I know you guys have had to have those. Well, I think she's really respectful and she understands that this has kind of been my career and this has been my life really. When you play in the NFL, you commit your life to the game.

1:12:35And so she's respectful in the fact that she knows that I will understand the right time to give it up and I won't play longer than I should. And so she's kind of left that up to me on how long I want to play. Could you see playing past your current contract? I could. I think it all kind of depends on my health and my quality of play. If you're healthy, if you're still playing at a top level, would you like to keep going? I don't see why I wouldn't. The NFL is a weird thing because it becomes part of who you are and you become an NFL player. Whereas when you're a younger player in college or even early in the NFL, you're just like a person that happens to be an NFL player.

1:13:24But the longer you've committed your life to it, that becomes who you are. And I think that happens with any profession. But really the level of commitment you have to have to be at the top of your game in football. You really have to be married to the game. You have to commit every aspect of every part of your life to being great at football. and after you've done that for a long time, it becomes who you are. And it's almost like when that's gone, it's almost like that part of you has died. And so it's really hard to give it up. And how much of the desire to continue along those lines is also because you aren't sure really what else you would do.

1:14:04Well, I think that's a big part of it for a lot of guys too. I mean, I don't really know what I want to do when I'm done playing. and a lot of guys have that fear because if you retire from football after a super long career, you're still only like 35 or 30 or even 40, which is the oldest guys in the NFL, and you still have a whole life to live, and so you almost have to reinvent yourself. So I think for a lot of guys that's kind of scary because what are you going to do? You can go into coaching, but okay, okay, there's a few guys that might want to go into coaching, but if you're not going to go into coaching, what are you going to do?

1:14:41You've trained yourself your entire life to be a football player. You have completely put the rest of your life on hold. So what are you going to do? You're just going to roll out of bed and now you're going to be a banker? Are you going to be an accountant? You're going to start where kids are that are 21, 20 years old, coming out of college right now, and you're 40 years old. So it's a very difficult transition. Right, except for the fact that, I mean, especially in your case and other successful players, if you manage your money, right, you know, there's not the pressure to immediately find another job.

1:15:18And you have the resources to set yourself up in whatever the next chapter is well. You know, you majored, I know, in business in college with an emphasis in real estate, urban land economics. so you know and academics obviously always important to you so i mean where's your head at in terms of what you'd like to do well i'm trying to keep all my options open because i don't really know what i want to do and and it's you're starting to think about it some though you think about like things that you enjoy and you could see yourself doing but undoubtedly every player that i've talked to that has retired says you can't do nothing which sounds so simple, but most guys that have made enough money that they don't have to work for the financial side of it, they think, well, I'm just going to do whatever I want.

1:16:16But it's such an empty feeling. This is from those guys that they feel like they have to have purpose in their life. When you're 21 or 22 or 23 and you start playing football, all you can think about is, wow, I can't wait till I have all this money and then I can just do whatever I want. But then you're 32 or 33 or 35 or 40 and you're saying, well, my whole life has been so structured and every day the purpose was I'm trying to become a champion. And now that's gone. I have no purpose in life. And without purpose, what am I doing? And then that's when the depression sneaks in. And from people on the outside, they're thinking, this guy's got everything.

1:16:54He's got it all. He's got a family. He's got himself financially set up. He can do whatever he wants, but inside you're feeling empty because you have no purpose, because your whole life has had goals and purpose. And so I think it's important for people as NFL players when they retire to find that purpose, whatever it is. It doesn't necessarily have to be the most high-paying job or a job that even gives you any money, but what's your purpose going to be in life? And what's going to give you direction? What's going to be your compass? And I think a lot of guys struggle and the NFL PA actually has a saying that says you're in the wilderness for guys that are right out of the NFL and they're trying to find what that next chapter is in their life what what are they going to become who are they going to be because you're going to be a totally different person than you were when you were playing in the NFL and until you find that purpose it's like being in the wilderness what ideas have you batted around well I think naturally when you play in the NFL, the career that everyone just kind of expects you're going to take is going to be radio, TV, coaching, because you want to still be around the game.

1:18:02And I'm not crossing any of those off my list. And I'd like to keep those options open, but I'm not so naive to think that just because you played in the NFL, you're just going to roll over the next day and become great at whatever you're going to want to do. And after you've made a lot of Pro Bowls in the NFL, or you've had a lot of success in the NFL, whatever you do next, you're going to want to be successful. You're going to want to strive to be the best because that's what has given you satisfaction throughout your NFL career, the process of becoming or trying to become the best. And so whatever I want to do next, I want to become the best.

1:18:41And that's going to take time and commitment and it's going to take sacrifice and so I feel like I'm smart enough to understand that I know what I don't know and how much commitment it will take to do all those things so I don't want to say for sure but I also don't want to cross it out so I thought maybe that's a long answer but I kind of want to keep those doors open so I have those options because it's hard to know what you want to do until you do it I mean when you started doing the interview thing were you committed you knew that's what you want to do the rest of your life? I was like, man, I'm the best ever.

1:19:17You're like, this is good, being the greatest. So the remaining moments I have with you want to talk about some current NFL topics. The first one being, I think your favorite topic, and that being Commissioner Roger Goodell. Why do you think Goodell is like Vince McMahon? Well, I think because something Something that fans sometimes miss, and it's, I think, intentional from the NFL standpoint, they like this, is that the NFL is an entertainment business. As much as the NFL wants to sell to its fans that it's a pure game, it's all about the game, it's all about competition and who wins, it's not really about that.

1:20:03It's the entertainment. That's why people show up on Sundays. That's why people watch from their couches. millions of people all over the country and all over the world because it's entertaining. That's football. Football's entertaining. That's why it's the number one sport in North America. Not because it's the most pure game and there's the greatest search for a champion, and that might be part of it, but it's the entertainment side of it, which is the same thing that Vince McMahon's in charge of. He's in charge of entertaining, and that's why people show up to watch wrestling events. And so Goodell's sole mission, and that's why he was hired by the owners, was to make the most money and to try to build the best product to entertain the most fans, because that's how you make the most money.

1:20:49What do you think of Goodell's judgment? I think that Roger is an extremely smart man. I think he's a very, very good man, and he's done a phenomenal job for the NFL owners taking the league to unprecedented heights in revenue. I think he's made some very big mistakes in how he's handled players, specifically coaches, in fairness, in meeting out discipline, specifically. And I think... Like what? Well, I think the things that he's made the biggest mistakes on, Not that anybody cares what I think about it because I'm not the commissioner and he doesn't work for me. But I think... Yeah, but you've also, because of your success, earned a voice.

1:21:41People like... Let me put it this way. Fans seem to not like Roger for the way he's punished their favorite teams and their players. So I never sought out publicity about my opinions about Roger's job that he's done at times. but it has become popular because people like when players speak bad about the things that Roger has done to their favorite teams. And so specifically, I think deflate gate was a big, big issue. Obviously, I think the job that Roger did handling that, I thought, was very poor in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that the Patriots did not deflate their footballs.

1:22:27he still decided to suspend the guy four games, which is equivalent to using steroids, which, as we all know, would give you an enormous competitive advantage. In addition to that, even if he was deflating him, I'm not sure why we're supposed to care as fans or players or as anybody. I don't even know why you have a rule about how inflated the football has to be. If a guy, and this goes back to the fact that the NFL is an entertainment business. If the guy wants to throw a pancake out there, but he can throw 100 yards down the field and complete 90 % of his passes, that's better for the fans. They love to see entertainment.

1:23:09They love to see offense. We should be encouraging these things. These are the exact type of things that you should be encouraging out of the players. You should be encouraging Tom Brady to try to do his job as well as he possibly can within some type of framework and the only reason you would have like steroid guidelines is because we know that steroids are harmful to players health. That's why we banned steroids not because we don't want to see superhumans running around crashing into each other. Right, but you have to have some set of uniform rules and regulations even not just against things that are health.

1:23:42But if it's equal, why would you have the rule? That's my question. So as long as everybody's allowed to deflate their footballs, why should we care? If it's better for the game, if it's more offense and it's more entertaining, we should be encouraging these guys to do it. So as long as it doesn't give you an unfair advantage, which in my opinion and the opinion of most people, it's more of a comfort thing. To me, the way I saw the deflated football thing was more like I get to wear a pair of broken-in shoes because I like these shoes. They're more comfortable to me. And for Tom Brady, maybe he liked the football that was a little softer so he could grip it a little bit better.

1:24:24I don't know why anybody should care. You think Goodell should still be commissioner? You know, that's not my decision. And I think that— I mean, if it was your decision. If it was my decision, if I was a player or if I was an owner. How about both? All right. So if I was an owner, I would love Roger Goodell because he has taken every single bullet from the NFL that's come their way. He's been compensated handsomely for it. He's made him an incredible amount of money and revenue. He was able to leverage the players and win some significant concessions from the players in the last bargaining agreement.

1:25:02So if I'm an owner, I'm thinking Roger Goodell is our guy. He is awesome. If I'm a player, I would ask him to maybe change some things. I think that he could do a good job. So if you were a player, would you keep him? No, if I was a player, I wouldn't. I would put somebody in charge. But this is a player standpoint, so it's kind of silly because if the players were running the league, it'd be silly. But if I was a player, certainly I think the mistakes he's made with his discipline in deflate gate, his discipline in the Ray Rice situation where he disciplined him, and then when the PR was bad on the NFL, they went back and they threw the book at him, and then now he's not in the league.

1:25:45You look at the Saints bounty gate. I played with Scott Fujita, who was kind of wrapped up in that thing, which I thought was handled poorly on Roger's behalf. I thought that, you know, disciplining some of the Saints players for doing something that the whole league had been doing and disciplining him as steeply as he did was not fair. I thought that maybe the best way to handle it would have been sort of more of a political approach where you kind of let the teams know that, hey, we've come under the, we've become aware of a situation where the coaches and players might have little pools of money going for players getting big hits or injuries, and we don't like that.

1:26:35That has no place in the NFL. We're going to stamp that out, and if this next year we find out any of that is happening, then we're going to punish people. It's almost like I think the approach that he took was, we're going to try to crucify one person so that everybody gets the message. And I don't know if that's the best way to run your league. So if I was a player, I would remove him, but nobody cares what I think. Johnny Manziel. What was your view of him when you were teammates, and what about now? I love Johnny. I think he's a great person. He's very friendly. He's a lot of fun, and I think that's probably been a big part of his struggles in the NFL, though, is he's got so many friends.

1:27:24He's got so many people that want to be with him and want to hang out with him that it detracts from his focus on being a quarterback. And to be an NFL quarterback, you have to be so obsessed and committed to the game that you almost have no time in your life for anything but a little bit of family and the rest of it is being a quarterback. And that's a commitment that few people are willing to make. It's almost a commitment above a level of a coach. But if you can't have that level of commitment, you almost can't succeed in the NFL as a quarterback. In what way were the distractions evident when he was here?

1:28:02Like to you personally? So being a quarterback just starts when everyone leaves the building at the end of the day. Like as a lineman, as a receiver, the rest of the team, I mean, meetings are over, you watch your film. You know, the guys that stay the longest besides a quarterback might watch an hour of film after meetings are all over at the end of the day. Well, a quarterback, he needs to be there from 6 in the morning until 11 p.m. He needs to have coaches hours. And if you don't do that, you just can't make it. And so if you think that you're going to go to work and then leave after meetings and go to dinner and a basketball game and go get drinks with friends, during the week, during the season.

1:28:46You can't do it. It's just not going to happen. And if you do it, you won't be properly prepared on a Sunday. If you were seeing that at the time, did you ever want to pull them aside and say, hey? Well, I think it's tough if you're not a quarterback to coach a quarterback. We had discussions and you talked, but unless as a quarterback you're self-motivated to do those things, nobody's going to talk you into something you don't want to do. How true is it that you once introduced yourself to the quarterback in the huddle during an actual game? It's very true. Actually, one of my favorite NFL stories, we were playing the Steelers last game of the year.

1:29:27We were out of the playoffs. I don't even know if they were playing for anything, but we were down to our fourth string quarterback going into the game as a starter. Thad Lewis was the starter. And we signed a guy off the street a couple days before the game to be the backup because we had nobody left. And in the game, lo and behold, Thad Lewis gets hurt. And they bring this guy in that's only been there for a couple days to be the quarterback in the huddle. And he gets into the huddle during a timeout. And I thought it was a perfect time to introduce myself since I'd never met him before. So I just reached out my hand and said, I'm Joe Thomas.

1:30:05I'm your left tackle. nice to meet you and he said hey i'm josh johnson uh it's great to be here and then he proceeded i think get sacked on the next play hey chicago class it up with crocs you know back to school is coming in fast so why wait to find your new fave footwear step into a local croc store and step into your new look try it style it make it yours because the right pair doesn't just show up It shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crock store today. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, merch, or tickets to the game.

1:30:53Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com.

1:31:16Explain the difficulty involved with so many quarterback changes as it pertains to your position. Well, it's really difficult as an offensive lineman to have a lot of different quarterbacks because our back is to the quarterback. So you never really know what he's doing. You can only hope based on the play call that you know what they're doing. And so when they're not doing what they're supposed to, whether it be because they don't know what they're supposed to do or they're ad-libbing, it makes your job tougher because now you're always blocking for a spot. And if you don't know where that spot is, how do you block for that spot?

1:31:56Unless you either know where it's going to be or you're looking at it. And you're not looking at it because my back's to him. So it adds a definite level of difficulty. Plus, quality quarterback raises the level of play of everybody by how they get rid of the ball with their timing, how they coordinate the offense, the communication between the quarterback and all the different facets on an offense. So when you don't have that consistent quality play, it makes everybody's job tougher. J.J. Watt, how did you go about finding out the connection you two shared? Well, I actually knew him a little bit in high school.

1:32:40He grew up, I don't know, five or ten miles from my hometown, from my house. You know, he grew up in Pewaukee, and I grew up in Brookfield. And if you look on a map, they touch. And I grew up where I could have thrown a stone across the road into Pewaukee. So we grew up pretty close together. And then when I was in the NFL, maybe my first year or two, he was in high school. And I remember working out at the same facility that he worked out at. And then I remember when he was in college, seeing him work out there. And even at that time, he had not really made a huge name for himself yet. Because he was kind of a late bloomer, really.

1:33:19I mean, he started as a walk-on and then transferred into Wisconsin, only played one year there. And then even I remember going into the draft, I thought, you know, he'd be maybe a second round, maybe end of the first round pick. And then he went to the combine and his numbers were off the chart and he shot way up the draft and became one of the higher picks.

1:33:41So I forgot what your question was, but that was a lot of answers about J.J. How did you go about finding out the connection you shared? but uh what so you guys early on talked about you know kind of living close together and yeah i mean it was just natural because like i said um we grew up so close together that i just the first time i met him it was like oh hey this is you know jj he's from pewaukee and he's getting some looks to play college football and you know nice to meet you that type of thing and um so from the moment I met him, I knew he was from Pewaukee. How crazy was it, though, to see this guy who's one town over also become one of the top players?

1:34:23Well, it is crazy to me because Wisconsin is not exactly a huge state. We don't even have one city that's huge. Milwaukee's our biggest city, which is the suburbs that we grew up in, and it's not exactly a football powerhouse. I mean, we're now kind of known for our linemen because in the last 20 years or so, Wisconsin has produced a lot of really good offense and defensive linemen, but it's kind of the chances of having the defensive player of the year three times and an offensive lineman that's made 10 Pro Bowls growing up within five or 10 miles of each other in very small towns is probably pretty slim.

1:35:07What do you think of the success he's had? I'm so proud of him. I mean, he's the best defensive player in the NFL. And for me, I've got a lot of pride in my home state, especially in light of the fact that we don't produce a lot of football players. I'm very proud of my college at Wisconsin because we have a great tradition. But we're not spoken about at the upper echelon of college football a lot like in Alabama. But we produce a heck of a lot of really, really good offensive linemen, defensive linemen and football players. And I think it's great to get some respect for our state and our college based on the things that, you know, a guy like J.J.

1:35:51does. So LeBron, tell about seeing him play for the first time in high school. Yeah, so it was incredible. I saw him, it was even before high school, I want to say we were maybe 13 or 14. And my best friend at the time and I were playing on an AAU team for Wisconsin, and we went out to Las Vegas for a big AAU tournament. And his team was the Ohio Shooting Stars. and I remember the program for the whole tournament which was like 500 teams from all over the country or something like that had him on the cover at like 13 or 14 and even back then everyone was saying he's gonna go to the NBA right from high school and he's gonna be this phenom and so his games had like a thousand people at it and usually an AU game has your family and a couple friends and maybe like one guy that fell asleep in the bleachers or something like that.

1:36:49But to see this huge crowd coming to his game to watch him and then I remember watching him play and just being amazed because he was so tall but he played like a guard and was just fantastic. I just remember him we were you know 13 or 14 or whatever and he ran from one baseline to the other baseline and jumped up and blocked this guy's shot right against the glass like he's done in the NBA a bunch of times and it was just incredible to see a 12 or 13 year old kid just be able to move and jump the way he did. Thank you very much. All right, sounds good. Thank you. That does it for my chat with Joe Thomas.

1:37:28The sit-down was just one part of the full day with him in Cleveland, where we joined the NFL superstar at the Browns facility for a training session, and we joined him for a meal at his barbecue restaurant. To watch all that and more, youtube.com slash Graham Bensinger. Remember to give us a rating and review if you get a chance. Thanks again. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gets to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

1:38:10Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, the Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at the Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving. Thank you for listening.