Joe Thomas eager to share Browns Legends honor with kids who don't remember him playing

Despite Joe Thomas being universally considered a future member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, there is a void in his football life unrelated to the Browns lacking a postseason appearance during his career.

None of his children remembers him playing.

Thomas and his wife, Annie, have four kids, Logan, 9, Camryn, 8, Jack, 6, and Reese, 4. The eldest of the couple's three daughters, Logan attended many Browns games and obviously would have the best chance of the Thomas children to recall her father lining up at left tackle. He last played in 2017, when she would have been 4 years old.

“She said, 'Daddy, the only thing I remember about going to Browns games was sitting on the floor at the stadium and eating peanuts,'” Thomas said Thursday with a laugh over Zoom. “She loved peanuts and she would go with my wife and some of our friends, and they'd always buy her a bag of peanuts and crack the peanut out of the shell and give it to her.

“[My kids] don't even remember me wearing a Browns jersey. They have like no memories of me playing football. It's a little sad, but it's also kind of cool now for me to be able to come back and be recognized, be on the field, for them to wear my jersey and start to kind of make some of those memories now when the team's a little bit better.”

The recognition will be on full display Sunday when Thomas and the late Darrel “Pete” Brewster are inducted into the Browns Legends program during a halftime ceremony at FirstEnergy Stadium. Brewster, a defensive end and tight end who played for the Browns from 1952-1958, died in January 2020 at the age of 89.

Thomas said pretty much his entire immediate family will be in attendance for the home opener between the Browns (1-0) and New York Jets (0-1). The exception will be his sister and her family because she recently gave birth to twins.

“It's going to be really special for everybody,” Thomas said. “I'm raising my kids the right way. They're being raised as Browns fans. We watch the games together on the weekends, and they love it. They've got all their Browns stuff when it's school spirit day. We live in Wisconsin, so, of course, everybody has [Green Bay] Packers gear. There's a couple [Minnesota] Vikings. Maybe one or two [Chicago] Bears. They're the only Browns fans wearing their Browns jerseys, but they do it proudly.”

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They certainly can be proud of what their dad has accomplished.

Thomas, 37, made the Pro Bowl in each of his first 10 NFL seasons. In his 11th season, he suffered a ruptured left triceps tendon and never played again, officially retiring in March 2018. The injury ended his streak of 10,363 consecutive snaps, a historic stretch that began with his first NFL game in 2007. The number 10,363 is enshrined in the Browns' Ring of Honor.

"I tried to be consistent, and I tried to be always there for the guys around me and to help them do their jobs as well as they possibly could," Thomas said. "That was what drove me to play through pain and play through injuries and show up every Sunday."

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Thomas didn't simply show up. He thrived. He garnered six first-team and two second-team All-Pro selections.

"Consistency [is] the trait of a great O-lineman," Browns four-time Pro Bowl left guard Joel Bitonio said. "... Everybody has a couple bad plays here and there, but [Thomas] was just so consistent in what he did."

Although the Browns went 48-128 and achieved just one winning season with Thomas on their roster, his individual excellence is expected to result in him becoming a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2023. In other words, the Browns Legends program is akin to an appetizer before next year's entree in Canton.

Discussing this weekend's honor and the gargantuan one yet to come led Thomas to reflect on a time when none of his kids were born. As a rookie third overall draft pick from the University of Wisconsin in 2007, Thomas told Browns beat writers his goals were to become a starter, a Pro Bowl pick and a Hall of Famer.

“I didn't think anything of it, but it kind of was a little bit of a newsworthy item for this rookie to say he wanted to go to the Hall of Fame,” Thomas said. “Nobody ever slapped my wrist about it, but I realized maybe I probably shouldn't put my goals out there for the common folk to absorb and criticize because those are some pretty lofty goals for a guy that's never played a game in the NFL to say he wanted to be in the Hall of Fame.

“But that's where my mindset was. That's what I wanted to do in my career. While I'm not there yet, this is a really special step for me to be recognized by the organization and put my name among the greats who ever wore a Cleveland Browns uniform.”

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Thomas has long been described as a legend. Now there is an official honor to go along with the label.

“It does make me feel a little bit old,” he said.

On the bright side, some of his kids will remember this weekend, even when they grow old.

Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com.

On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Joe Thomas eager to share Browns Legends honor with his kids