Cleveland Browns legend Joe Thomas was rock-solid in protection. That doesn't mean he was unbreakable.
Thomas played 11 seasons in Cleveland, etching his name into NFL history books as the best left tackle in football during his generation, and one of the greatest of all time at his position. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the Hall of Famer, however.
Through Thomas' decade-plus anchoring the offensive line in Cleveland, the Browns didn't tally a lot of wins. After his rookie season in which the Browns finished 10-6 and second in the AFC North, Thomas didn't experience a winning season, with 10 consecutive losing seasons to close his career.
That kind of losing takes a toll on a player, as he detailed on a recent episode of the "Bussin'
with the Boys" podcast.
"About midway through that 10th season, we were playing the Patriots, and Tom Brady comes to town, and I (expletive) hated Tom Brady, as everybody did in the league. I hated the Patriots, I just wanted to smash them so bad. We lost like 30-0. I remember sitting in the car after the game, and I was just like, crying. I had ice on both elbows, knees, I was in pain.
"And my wife was driving, and I was just looking out the window, and it was that moment where I realized, I've been kind of fooling myself for a while. We were not gonna win no matter what I did. And she finally said, 'Are you OK? Did you have like, a bad game?' And then the tears really came, 'cause I said, 'I played a perfect game, and we lost by 30.'"
Thomas continued by saying it was the moment where he felt like he had a loss of control, and didn't have as much a hand in the Browns situation as he felt he did.
"I ended up meeting with the team psychologist, just talking to somebody about it, because it had been like, almost 10 years built up to that moment where you came to the realization, like, 'I'm kinda fooling myself. We're not that team, and we really don't have a chance. I don't impact this game the way I'd hoped.'"
Thomas' final season in 2017 didn't come with any hope. In fact, the opposite: the Browns finished 0-16, just the third team in NFL history to go wire-to-wire without a victory, joining the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-14) and the 2008 Detroit Lions (0-16).
That 0-16 season led to the No. 1 overall pick, Texas A&M pass rusher Myles Garrett. Like Thomas, Garrett enjoyed plenty of individual success with the Browns, but not much team success, with the team winning one playoff game during his tenure.
Garrett was ultimately traded to the Los Angeles Rams ahead of the 2026 season.
Thomas was a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee in 2023.
The Patriots-Browns game in question
The Patriots came to Cleveland and took home a 33-13 win over the Browns on Oct. 9, 2016. In that matchup, Thomas allowed just a single pressure (one hurry, per PFF), and Brady threw for 406 yards and three touchdowns in the win. New England would finish the season 14-2 and win Super Bowl 51 over the Atlanta Falcons 34-28.
The Falcons infamously blew a 28-3 lead in the second half of the matchup, leading to the Patriots' overtime win.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Browns icon details how team broke him: 'I'm kinda fooling myself'
