25 Players in 25 Years: Brian Baldinger on Nos. 15-12

24:26Let's take a quick break. We will be back with number 13.

24:40Back on NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years. This is a man who initially was in my top 10. I moved him up. I moved him down. No matter where you put him, you got to recognize he has the best nickname of anyone in the top 25. life. Number 13, Calvin Johnson. The left, looking deep, throw into the end zone, wants Calvin, well covered, he goes up, he makes the catch, are you kidding me? Oh, Megatronian did it again, touchdown Detroit Lions. There were three Bengals draped on him, and Calvin went up and hauled it in, 50 yards and a score.

25:35I have never met a humbler, harder working, outstanding player than you are. For sure. Calvin Johnson, a.k.a. Megatron. a guy where if you just are adding up the all pros, you know, three first team all pros, one second, maybe not as much as some of the other guys atop this list. But when I thought about greatness, kind of like Keekly, even though the career was shorter, what could you possibly do with this man? 6 '5", 239 pounds and ran a 4-3-5. To me, he's the definition of one and one. So I could have put him any lower than this. What do you remember most about Calvin Johnson's career, Baldy?

26:18Well, I mean, just the uniqueness of what you described. We've never seen a guy that size, weight, 40-time, leaping ability. We've never seen a guy with that many identifiable features. And then the passion for the game, the hands, everything that goes with it. So that's the first thing. He led the league, if I'm not mistaken here, Greg, he has led the league in, I mean, he had over 200 targets this season, you know, when he caught 122 passes, led the league in targets, receptions. He's led the league in yards, obviously, almost 2 ,000. Led the league in touchdowns. He led the league in every department at one point or another, in one year or another.

27:00But, I mean, he just compacted, you know, I mean, he retired at age 30. and, you know, he did all this before basically age 30. But I remember his rookie year and I don't know if I guess I was announcing a game for Fox and it was at Lincoln Financial Field and he went up for a ball. This is the only time I ever saw him injured. He went up for a ball. I don't know who the corner was, Sidney Brown. I'm not sure who it was. Sheldon Brown maybe, but regardless, he goes up for the ball and, I mean, he came down right on his back. And, I mean, he just laid there. And I think he only played like 10 games that year.

27:39But I don't know how many times while he was laying down, we showed the highlight. There wasn't a single person on the planet that could have gone up as high as he went up to go get that ball. And, unfortunately, when you're that big and you could jump that high, sometimes those falls hurt. They kind of took a pounding on him. But, you know, his ability just like to play against Cincinnati and your B-roll right there, I mean, just to outjump three defenders right there to get the ball. There's a lot of those catches throughout his career where literally you could just throw it up and let him go get it.

28:11And he could have taken that moniker, you know, always never covered. I mean, you could just call Megatron that. Yeah, he, it's just like, there was nothing you could do with it. And you mentioned that injury and it did slow him down his rookie year. But for the most part in his career, he was durable. He missed a couple games here and there towards the back end. But by the end, you know, He basically was playing every game, every season, and he went out on top. That does mean something to me. I'm not going to knock a guy that he didn't have in his 30s when he was the second youngest Hall of Fame player ever, when he's racking up yards play after play.

28:47You mentioned that there were plays that he could just make that no one else could. And yeah, he's jumping over guys in triple coverage. Let's actually watch another play. This is going to be against the Green Bay Packers in 2015. from the 17. Looking for Megatron, and it's a touchdown right over Sam Shields. How about the jump? Gets the left toe in. Yeah, watch what he does to get that left foot down, holding on to the football. Yeah, he got that other hand back on it. That would have been... Look at him control it by the nose. That's incredible, because he just he made other NFL players just look like regular mortals, like he was an adult playing with a bunch of kids.

29:37He's Megatron. He's Megatron. He's from another planet, right? I mean, he literally was. And so, great nickname. It's a great talent. You know, like the other Hall of Famer, walk-in Hall of Famer, Barry Sanders. I mean, their careers were short, but in those compressed period of time, 10 for Barry, 9 for Calvin, they were the best player at their positions. And it was hard to argue that. And so, over that period of time, That was the most lethal receiver in the game. And look, I mean, Randy Moss was, you know, was that guy. But, you know, Randy wasn't 6 '5", 230, you know, 240. You know, he was certainly a freak athlete in his own right.

30:16But I thought, you know, Calvin Johnson's ability to take a five-yard shallow cross and turn it into a touchdown or a long run afterwards, and that stride of his was just, you know, there's something graceful. You know, it's like watching Secretariat run. You know, there's just something graceful about the athlete that he was and how smooth and easy he made everything look. Yeah, that's a great it's a great comp for him because I don't know what what else it would be. But at that size, yeah, it was just kind of a beautiful thing to watch. And those those three straight first team all pros and he had a second one in there, too, was actually towards the back end of his career.

30:53And you mentioned the record breaking season, but I'll spell it out. It was 1 ,964 yards, still the all-time record for receiving yards in a single season. He had 122 catches that season. And he just made things that felt a little impossible feel possible. So Baldy, it wasn't even in that season that he had his 329-yard game against the Cowboys. That game had 14 catches. And that, to me, was symbolic of what that era was like for the Lions. They won that game 31-30. So all these catches that he's making, they needed every single one of those 329 yards because the defense usually wasn't there for them.

31:32And he had Matthew Stafford helping him out along the way. So it's not like he was in a bad spot that the organization let him down a little bit. But he did everything that he could absolutely do to lift them up. No question about it. No question. I mean, there was not. I mean, I remember Matt Millen was there as, you know, the general manager. And, you know, they went through some quirky head coaches and all that. I mean, he survived all of that. And he was like, look, if you wanted to defend Detroit, you had to defend Calvin Johnson. And so that's what the game plan was for defense. How do we not take Calvin Johnson out?

32:06How do we slow him? How do we, like, at least limit him and try to contain him? Because we know he's going to get catches. And we know he's going to make some big catches. and he's going to force all kinds of pass interference calls and all that stuff, you know, but how do we, you know, how do we take care of everybody else? Cause we know he's probably going to get most of his. Right. There's this famous screenshot of forget who it was, whether it was the Packers or just putting three guys on them in the, in the red zone. They just were like, you can do whatever you want. Like even before the snap, putting three guys on them before the snap that you're not going to, you're not going to score on us.

32:44How did you think he was like as a route runner and as a technician? Like, was there a part of his game that you thought was underrated in terms of that? Or was it more just he physically just kind of overwhelmed everyone? I think physically just overwhelmed people. I mean, there's better route runners than Calvin Johnson, but that's OK. When you have that kind of size and you can still come out of your brakes the way he came out of his brakes. You know, I mean, when you can still move like that, it doesn't really matter if you can turn guys around. because ultimately there was always separation because of his size and his leaping ability.

33:18And, you know, some guys have to be great route runners because, you know, they don't have the gifted size that Calvin had or that Randy Moss had. And so, you know, just by lining up wherever they put him because they moved him everywhere. But just by lining up, you know, he had people in their backpedal, you know, before the ball was snapped because the last thing you wanted was to get beat deep by Calvin Johnson. You'd give him a lot of stuff underneath, maybe try to tackle the catch. But you didn't want to be on the highlight reel on Sunday night or Monday morning with Calvin Johnson, you know, going over the top of you.

33:52Yeah, and some of it to me is just these, it's not just the numbers, but just the physical feats that few people could do. He has the most career games of 200-plus receiving yards. The only one that ties him is Lance Allworth. So, like, it's almost like a different generation of players. as Calvin Johnson just felt like he came from another planet. And yeah, maybe not as many all pros as like Antonio Brown, who's not on this list, or T.O., who we've already done on this list. But when he was at his absolute best, he also has a consecutive 100-yard, you know, game streak that no one else has. To me, he's one of one.

34:32He's Calvin Johnson. And yes, he is number 13 on the list. Our last guy we will talk about with you today, Baldy, is coming up next. Number 12, Joe Thomas. With the third pick in the 2007 NFL draft, the Cleveland Browns select left tackle Joe Thomas, Wisconsin.

35:0310 ,363. That's how many consecutive snaps I had during my career. That number 10 ,363 is special to me in a lot of ways. And not just because it's an NFL record, but because it shows that I was there for my brothers 10 ,363 times in a row. So being an offensive lineman is all about being a servant and showing up for everybody else. Loyalty, consistency, doing something bigger than yourself, showing up for the man next to you. Those are the values that I learned at an early age. And those are the values that I took on to the football field. Joe Thomas with one of the most handsome busts there in the Hall of Fame.

35:43They did a great job with that one. The hair's on point and a player who won an all pro eight times, six times first team, another two times second team was the all 2010s all decade team for the Hall of Fame and for pro football reference. reference and that snap streak, Baldy, I think helps define him, not just that he stayed on the field, but that the repetitiveness, and you can explain this as an offensive lineman, to be excellent and in so similar snap after snap and the discipline that that takes, what impresses you the most about Joe Thomas? Well, before I get to the question, one of my great regrets in life is I was offered an opportunity that the shot you have of Joe there on the boat that's where he went draft day yeah he went fishing with his dad and they offered me a chance to be with Joe on the boat fishing um draft day with Joe and they didn't know he was going to be a top 10 pick we didn't know which number whatever he was the third pick but like I could have been there with Joe.

36:51You got to be there, Baldy. What were you doing? You know, I mean, fishing just isn't one of my high priorities, Greg. Like, I don't know. Like, it can be really boring if the fish aren't jumping in a boat. You just like swimming with sharks, Baldy? You need more action? So, anyways, I passed up that opportunity. I regretted it. All the things that Joe said speaks to a brotherhood that really offensive linemen understand, the good ones and the great offensive lines as a group, they all understand how important that number was because on a lot of those teams, they were a bad team and they were amongst the worst teams for much of Joe's career.

37:31And it would have been very easy to say, okay, you know, this elbow is popping out of his joint right now. I could take the Sunday off or I could go back for my brotherhood. Like, he'll never tell you how many injuries he played through or played with in order to keep that streak alive. That's number one. But the consistency is what everybody strives. That's what repetition is all about. So that when you, it's, you know, you want to have that muscle memory so that regardless of who you're playing against, you're going to, your technique is going to be the same. Play in and play out. No matter what happens on the play.

38:11Like you just flush it, you go to the next play, you do a consistently great job, and you string together 70 great plays during the course of a game. And that's the goal of every offensive lineman. You could have 69 great plays, but the one play where you give up the quarterback sack or the quarterback hit or a hold on a big play, that's all you think about the whole night into the next day is that one bad play. And I think Joe took that just sitting down in the film room with him and watching him talk through techniques. You think you know the game. You think you understand the game like a lot of us do, and we work at it.

38:49We all work at it. But when Joe explains the game to you, it goes to another level now. And things that you might just take for granted, the set, the hands, the hand placement, you know, in the run block, the aiming point, all these things that kind of just sort of looked like they run together, they never just ran together to Joe. there was an ultimately a purpose and a reason behind everything he did on the field, even though so much of the game is kind of random and, and kind of just, okay, let's just play the play. Like you can't control it. But so much of it was what happened during practice to prepare for that, those moments.

39:31Yeah. There's something too, about a guy who comes into the league. they actually have some success right off the bat with Derek Anderson, that team that went 10 and six. And then after that, it's just brutal. It's, it's an incompetently run franchise who happened to make an absolutely great pick at number three. That was a great draft. And, and they made the right, the great choice there with Joe Thomas, but just made mistake after mistake. And it got worse and worse. And to show up all the, and you've been in a lot of different NFL locker rooms, some great ones. I'm sure you were into bad ones.

40:07I don't know, but speak to, I guess, what it meant for a guy like Joe Thomas to be there for everyone that came through that organization over the 10 years that he's there and have it as an example of how to do something the right way, no matter how much they're blowing it from above in terms of how they're running the team. Yeah, I've looked at Greg. I played on 1-15 Indianapolis Colts season. miserable but i try to do what joe did what happens with a guy like joe is it's very easy when you're you know one in ten and you're just playing out the street it's very easy to cut every single thing short all week long practice treatment lifting um you know extra um studying well it's very easy to cut all that stuff short or when the wheels fall off during the game to just start looking at the clock.

41:02And I think Joe just never did any of that. I think Joe prepared exactly the same as if they, instead of being 3-13, they were 13-3 and they're going to the playoffs. I don't think the preparation ever changed. And so if you're a teammate of Joe, a young Joe Plutonio, you know, some of these guys that came through Cleveland, you know, with Joe, like at least you got to see what a real pro looks like and what it's supposed to look like. And maybe that guy that might shut it down or not go at it quite as hard, and watching Joe, maybe that makes you want to emulate him even that much more. I love that you mentioned that because Thomas' legacy to me was a part of my thought.

41:48He's the highest offensive lineman on this list, and you could pick a lot of players. There's so many great players, but Betonio, I'm forgetting about who else was there that was really great. I'll think of it in a second, but it also struck me. Miles Garrett's talked about it. He's on this list. He's at the back end and he's a guy whose first season was 0-16. And he saw what Joe Thomas was doing in that season and as an example. So that's in terms of the way he played in Cleveland. But do you think he's had an impact, Joe Thomas, that is, as a technician to the players and the position that came after him?

42:24Oh, no question. No question. When I did a film study with him, we went back, you know, he was a shot putter in high school. And, you know, his kick start was basically what a shot putter does. And he just basically took the physics of throwing a shot put. You know, both hands were braced on the inside knee, his right knee. His left foot was back. And it was just like he was when we did an NFL films where we basically shot him shooting a shot put and then dropping back to, you know, I saw, you know, one of the clips that he had was against, you know, Terrell Suggs is one of the great pass rushers and one of the great matchups during his tenure as a left tackle going against Suggs, you know, twice a year.

43:10So there was a carryover from shot putting to what he developed as a left tackle. But, I mean, Lane Johnson has copied him, that same start that Lane has, and his strive to be as consistent with that start. He did that. Jason Peters learned that from there. Jordan Mailata now in Philadelphia. They've all basically watched Joe Thomas, and they copied him. And that's just a couple guys. I'm just around those guys more frequently in Philadelphia. So I know how hard they studied him. But I would tell anybody that if you wanted, because, you know, you get ready for the draft, Greg, you start watching these kids and studying them like I did Joe Thomas coming out of Wisconsin.

43:50But, you know, what you're looking for at any level is consistency. And so what I'll say if a young tackle asks me what I think, I go, man, your set has to be more consistent. Like you're changing up all the time. You're late. You're not hitting the right mark. Like, you could literally put a blindfold on Joe Thomas, and he would be able to hit that mark, his hands, his punch, where his hands landed, what the aiming point was. Like, he rarely ever missed, and that was a big part in the pass game. In the run game, it's interesting. Like, he had this thing, Greg, where if he was on the ground, nobody was allowed to pick him up off the ground.

44:31Like, he couldn't get up off the ground. He had to – off his back. so he had to roll over onto his stomach and then push himself up off the ground but you you'll go and see it like he talked about it and joking like he would never let anybody pick him up off the ground you know like guys just help my guy up like that come up off goal line you're diving at somebody's legs and you're cutting them whatever like he that was one of his little pet peeves like nobody's picking me up off the ground i'm getting myself up off the ground that's amazing and yeah to me he's the ultimate example of a guy who he's talked about it for offensive linemen he he had to eat so much and he was he he focused so much on his career that his study habits of all the pass rushers and studying everything was amazing but he talked about how how much he had to eat and that it was it was unnatural for him and he would he's the he's the guy who the second his career ended suddenly three months later he he lost like 50 pounds and he looks like a totally different, amazing, crazy human being.

45:32Well, that happens to a lot of guys. You can go one or two ways. You either lose the weight or you gain it. But the most of the guys that lose it like he did, they lose it quickly because all the things that, you know, trying to cram 10, 12 ,000 calories into your body, like you got so tired of doing it and making sure that otherwise the weight, especially in training camp where you're in two days back in those days, you know the weight would fall off if you didn't cram 10 ,000 calories so the first thing you do is man thank god i don't have to overeat anymore and so just the fact that you're not just doubling 12 ,000 calories into your body on a daily basis your weight just naturally starts to go back to where it should be normally so it happens to a lot of guys um and i i didn't think joe was gonna be any different than those guys so only six players in the history of the nfl made the Pro Bowl, by the way, each of their first 10 seasons.

46:27It's a wild list. It's Aaron Donald, Joe Thomas, Barry Sanders, Lawrence Taylor, and then we're going way back to Mel Renfro and Merlin Olsen back in the 60s. So that's a hell of a list to be on. So is this one. I felt a little out of my depth with the offensive linemen, so I hope I did you guys proud. I got Walter Jones at the back end of the list. I have Zach Martin because I thought we needed to get an interior guy and he's in terms of him compared to other guards felt so ahead of the game so he's in there around 17 so many other great players could have made the list whether it's tyron smith they thought about trent williams uh your guy lane johnson they all would have been worthy too so i i hope i did your position proud baldy and that you're okay with my selections yeah i'm okay with it um yeah i'm more than fine with it i mean you know there there is you know one particular left tackle in Baltimore, Greg, that you might want to consider.

47:23I know he's drafted in 96, so I don't know if that qualifies. You know, the fact that, you know, he spent the early part of his years before the 25 year cutoff right there. Jonathan Ogden had such an amazing career even after 2000 that he did get strong consideration. And if you were counting him from 96 on, he would probably be first. I would give them to you. But he is someone who came into the league. He was so good right off the bat. Like maybe the best part of his career was his first five, six years, although he was he was something I helped me take the easy way out, Baldy, sometimes when they had such great years before 2000, because it was painful.

48:04It was like picking between children here to knock these guys off. So that helped me take Ogden off because I was like, let's give it to the guys who were We're almost entirely in this century. The one thing, Greg, about Joe and what you mentioned about the consecutive streak of, you know, Pro Bowls form and that rare, you know, that list that you mentioned of six or five other guys. You know, I'm not saying that the voting is always, you know, popularity contest, but it's kind of easy. Just, you know, who's the who's the best left tackle on the best team? Like you kind of go in that direction sometimes.

48:37And, you know, you're 0-16. Are you really going to put the left tackle on an 0-16 team in the Pro Bowl? A lot of players wouldn't vote like that. But that's the respect that he garnered. Even we know that the team and the organization was poor for long stretches of his career, yet the attention that he still received, consistency that he played at, is still a sign of great respect from his peers and from the fans that vote and the coaches and personnel people that all involved with voting. Yep. And I tried to put a little more weight on the on the all pros and he dominated with that. And actually, PFF, which, you know, it's not perfect, but it's interesting because they're certainly not caring about what the record is or anything like that.

49:21And two of their best four seasons of all time, just by by their total score from a tackle, two of their best four seasons ever. any player, any season, we're by Joe Thomas. Just shutting people down in a great division, by the way, for pass rushers. So I feel good about him. We're about halfway through this list. It's going to be tough to top you, Baldy. I would just like to spin the dial and just press a button and hear Baldy's stories on all 25 of these guys. Well, you sort of accumulate this stuff over the years, but a lot of these things just get triggered by the conversation, Greg. So I'm happy that you invited me in.

50:03Got a chance to talk about, you know, four of these great players, many of the players I've studied, you know, week in, week out on film. So they're pretty still pretty fresh in the memory bank. Appreciate Brian Baldinger. And yeah, he'll be all over the airwaves for NFL Network and his podcast in the upcoming season. Our next episode will be our fourth edition of NFL Daily's Top 25 Players in the last 25 years. We're going to be joined by Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice. There might be a certain player that he was a ball boy for coming up on that episode. We'll see you then.

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