DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Joe Thomas and the Secrets of the Offensive Line

Here are a couple of other comments from Joe:

Aditi Kinkhabwala ‏@AKinkhabwala 1h1 hour ago
Joe Thomas advocates for Pettine to get another year. "I think he's a good coach. I think he's one of the better ones we've had."

Aditi Kinkhabwala ‏@AKinkhabwala 50m50 minutes ago
Joe Thomas asked what he'd like to see from Johnny Manziel: "just a commitment to the game."

Joe Thomas has $29.5M left on his contract. One thing Joe Thomas is absolutely not doing is retiring.

Link

You know - It looks bad...but it has looked bad for literally decades. I get people are down - and this stretch is painful - but the Browns in my lifetime (46 years) have been overall - well - painful. This looks bad due to all the constant turnover and it is. How do you stop the madness? Well, you can't look at the last 7 games and this years records combined and say we are on the right path - or can you? Dang - you Except for the 85-89 run, Brown's barely ever sniff .500, except for every 5 years or so.

We do have a window here - Balt is on there way down and so is Pitt. Even Cincy window of time will be closing soon.

Maybe keeping Pet is a good idea - I don't know...I do know there was a lot of questionable calls, timeouts, poor time management, 2-point conversion attempts, and way too many passes and not enough run balance. Would Pet hit his stride in 2 years - maybe? Did the guys play hard for him - absolutely. Is Pet an NFL ready HC to keep growing and building on? Maybe. If the talent is as bad and lacking as most say it is, then at this point, we will have full roster turnover so why would changing the coach then matter? Pet will just have to start over with new talent. If our roster is so 'untalented' then no matter what, we are at least 3 years out from even sniffing .500, correct? If we agree we can't win with no talent, it will take a few years to acquire talent?

He'd have to be HC..period!
No say in D as his scheme blows!

"one of the better ones we have had"... not quite sure how to take that. I'd like to know what JT thinks of the O Play calling and Talent on the O - where does he think the problem lies?

"Commitment to the game"...if he is not committed yet, after 2 years, what is going to change? Commitment is not a switch I think you can flip..or can you?

B

I would be OK with keeping Pett and letting him grow in his next year. If this would encourage Schwartz, Thomas and Mack to be here, I am all for it. Constant turnover and turmoil is defeating. I do feel Mack is gone...for sure.

Farmer, however, must go...now!

Joe also said this:

Aditi Kinkhabwala ‏@AKinkhabwala 43m43 minutes ago
Browns' Joe Thomas: "The most important thing in this business is finding a QB... If you don't you're just going to get fired."

I think that says a lot about what he thinks.

I like that..I think that makes the case for keeping Pet. You have players wanting to keep him. QB has killed Pet - and we have changed QB's a lot - and we did have a few close games. As much as I flip-flop on Pet, I would not be disappointed if we kept him IF we make some changes on his staff...and with Farmer gone, - drafting key talent.

I have not agreed with everything Pettine has done, (for example, I think that he really should have paid more attention to the defense this year when it struggled, and I think that he still needs more work on time issues)but I said, when he was hired, that we need to give someone 4-5 years and give them time to turn this mess around. This team has been a mess for 15 years. It's not going to turn around, especially not in a way that endures and thrives, if we just keep tearing everything down every couple of years.

ESPN Cleveland ‏@ESPNCleveland 50s51 seconds ago
Grossi: I think there is a good chance that the Browns will look into trading Joe Thomas in the off-season.

Amen.

I won't be heart-broken if we ultimately fire Pet, but I don't think he's the reason we're losing games either. He was the best of the "also-rans" who didn't turn us down the last time around. He wasn't a sure-fire can't miss type HC. He was going to need some time to learn/develop and make some mistakes (and he has). Nothing he's done has been so egregious as to make me think he HAS to go at this point though and I'd favor sticking with him another 2-3 years to let it play out and see what we've got. Then again, if you lose 18 out of 21...not many people survive that so my guess is he's gone and we're back to trying to hire no name "up and comers"....again.....and around and around we go, where it stops nobody knows.

I think with a real GM making picks and #2 gone, Pet could just help turn this thing around eventually. But it's Cleveland. We don't let that stuff happen. He'll be fired tonight surely.

I think there is a good chance they won't.

Pure speculation. We don't even know who the GM or coach will be.

Another impending regime change has franchise left tackle Joe Thomas pondering his future with the Browns - ESPN Cleveland Blog- ESPN
http://espn.go.com/blog/cleveland/post/_..._medium=twitter

CLEVELAND - These season-ending Browns funerals don’t get any easier to experience.

Jobs are lost, families are displaced, old acquaintances are forgotten.

Browns left tackle Joe Thomas has seen four of them now and is about to see his

fifth organization blow-up – all coming after losses to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers in the 16th game.

Sunday’s 28-12 loss to the Steelers left the Browns with a 3-13 record – their worst in the four-year ownership of Jimmy Haslam. Another round of firings is in the offing. Coach Mike Pettine said after the game he would like to learn his fate Sunday night, but had no idea if Haslam would personally confirm to him what was widely reported before the game.

Thomas, 31, repeatedly has said he wants to be part of the turnaround of the Browns. But in the grimness of the finality of an eighth losing season in nine years, he admitted he was unsure if he would be back in 2016, or if he even wants to be back.

“It’s really sad,” Thomas said. “As you get older, the tomorrows get fewer and farther between. Who knows who’s going to be back in this locker room.

“It’s tough. It becomes harder every time it happens because you realize you’re closer to your end and every time there is a reset it puts you further away from reaching the playoffs and making that push for a Super Bowl.”

Thomas said he found himself wondering if Sunday’s was his last game for the Browns.

“No doubt,” he said. “When there’s turnover in the coaching staff, a lot of good players end up leaving, a lot of good coaches leave. There’s a lot of uncertainty when there’s turnover in the coaching staff. Certainly I could be one of them not here next year.”

Asked directly if he wanted to be back, Thomas said, “I’ll have to wait and see what happens with everything next week.”

Like many other teammates who came forward and publicly supported Pettine over the last two weeks, Thomas said he would have liked to have seen Pettine make it to a third season.

“The most important thing in this business is finding a quarterback,” Thomas said. “Coaches have a year of two to find a quarterback and when they don’t, they’re sent out the door.”

Like so many of his fired predecessors, Pettine had to play his final game with a third quarterback. Austin Davis, filling in for the concussed but mysteriously AWOL Johnny Manziel, had little chance against a Steelers team needing the win to make the playoffs. They backed in when Buffalo beat the Jets just as the Browns’ game was ending.

Davis was sacked seven times, intercepted twice and lost one fumble in leading the Browns to four field goals.

Reports of Manziel fleeing the auspices of the club while in concussion protocol to a casino in Las Vegas on Saturday night were not disputed by the club.

“I don’t know,” Pettine said if Manziel was in Las Vegas. “I wasn’t.”

Pettine said players are not permitted on the sideline while in concussion protocol. He hedged about the reports of Manziel abandoning the team for gambling in Las Vegas.

“Let me gather the information on it,” Pettine said. “It would be disappointing – I’ll leave it at that.”

Thomas said, “I don’t know if it’s fact. I was catching some Zs Saturday night. He’s obviously come some way from where he was last year, but there’s a ways to go. If that’s a true report, obviously for him some things are more important than football. Being a starting quarterback, that’s a problem that probably needs to be addressed in the offseason.”

Thomas said it’s “surprising” the Browns haven’t been able to solve their franchise quarterback problem in 17 years since rebirth in expansion in 1999. Davis was the 24th quarterback to start a game for the Browns in that time.

“Certainly you’d think by now we would have found the guy,” Thomas said. “Look at Pittsburgh’s roster, without Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, who knows what kind of team they’d be. But they have them, they’re a playoff team and they might win another Super Bowl.”

Roethlisberger threw for 349 yards and three touchdowns in registering his 19th win over the Browns in 21 games. He was intercepted twice, and those turnovers helped keep the game close for three quarters.

Manziel was the second first-round pick of the Browns in 2014 – the first draft of the shotgun marriage regime set up by Haslam between Pettine and first-time GM Ray Farmer.

The Browns were 7-6 under Brian Hoyer last year when they replaced him with Manziel. Since then, they are 3-16. Hoyer left for Houston in free agency and will be the starting quarterback when the Texans play a wild-card playoff game next week.

Farmer is expected to receive the same fate as Pettine and be dismissed.

A club spokesman said before the game he did not know when Haslam would meet the media to discuss reparations of his latest regime blow-up.

The big question is whether Haslam executed this one – his third in four seasons – with replacements in mind. Or will he have to suffer another round of searches and public snubs from the obvious candidates.

Among the head coach candidates connected to the Browns are Adam Gase, Chicago offensive coordinator; Doug Marrone, Jacksonville assistant head coach/offensive line; Chip Kelly, fired as Philadelphia head coach; and Tom Cable, Seattle offensive line coach.

Green Bay personnel executive Eliot Wolf, son of retired Hall of Fame Packers GM Ron Wolf, has been reported as the leading GM candidate.

Teams often turn it around quickly. May not be a rule in general but it happens enough. Just not in Cleveland apparently.

They do when they have key positions in place. Usually a team that turns things around has had a lot of injuries the year before, that caused a poor record, or has been bad enough that they get a top QB.

We have both of those things!

We also have a pretty poor talent level. There are some good players, but not enough that a new coach isn't going to clean house. Further, we are set to lose a lot of our best players to free agency. (and Mack to his opt out)

Manziel has single handedly turned this team on it's head. Granted, it wasn't hard to do.

Wasting his rookie year partying.
Rehab.
Convincing people this year he had his head on straight.
Partying.
Named the starter.
Benched for being a lying jerk.
Starter again.
Concussed - which he didn't disclose until 3 days after the game.
Seen in Vegas the day before a game that he couldn't play in - but was good enough to fly to Vegas, good enough to try to hide it by posting some damn instagram message.
Not showing up for the last game, even though he couldn't be on the field.

I bet he's got his stuff packed up already.

Bet his next appearance is in Texas.

I'm done with him. Sorry folks, where there's smoke, there's fire. His grandpa's money has allowed him to become what he is: not trustworthy.

His parents allowed him to become what he is: a liar.

His football skills have allowed him to become exactly what he is and will perpetually will be: injured.

He's just like Bill Clinton with all the "un proven" sexual assaults. Where there's smoke, there's fire. Monica agrees. All of Bill's alledged sexual dalliances were un proven - just a he said, she said thing.

Right, we all know the truth.

Manziel is just like Hillary - full of lies, believable lies - only to cover her ass/his ass. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Manziel is like Bill Crosby. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

He asked for the media attention. He basked in it.

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

It's why I won't be surprised if Pet gets the nod tonight. Of course, I won't be any less surprised if he gets the boot either.

+1

Bye bye Johnny Drama Queen

Too bad we can't make Chip our OC/Assistant Head Coach or something along those lines

I think it falls mostly on Farmer. Let guys go that should've stayed. Didn't draft right.

I would prefer to keep Pettine, and bring in an experienced Defensive Coordinator/Assistant Head Coach. I think that having someone to bounce things off of would be important to Pettine, if he were to remain as Browns Head Coach.

Sounds like he just got the axe - officially. Now that it happened I am bummed ..

I was thinking the same thing. Someone will hire Chip as a head coach.

And people think we shouldn't draft a QB....

I am off the Manziel bandwagon completely. Joe Thomas jhas convinced me that the guy just doesn't love football the way an NFL QB should.

All of those people who lambasted Pettine for benching Manziel should ask Thomas what he thought about it. I bet that he was just fine with it.

If I'm Haslam I'm meeting Joe Thomas every day, trying to keep him here and learn from him.

Ya think his ego will allow?

Of course JT was fine with benching #2. McCown was not only our best QB production-wise, but he and Davis were at least professionals with how they conducted themselves as leaders of the football team.

The true travesty in the whole mess is that Davis is a backup at best and McCown is 37...leaving neither as the answer to our QB question, yet we were hamstrung to get any other answers because #2 was still on the roster with yahoo's clamoring to "give him a shot" and "see what we have".

Now we HAVE to draft a QB in the first round because we have no other options. My guess is either McCown or insert vet FA that fits new HC scheme fights with our draft pick to be the starter next year. Round and round we go...where it stops nobody knows.

No.

He's a billionaire from his daddy's business. He dressed up truck stops. That's his claim to fame. Well, cleaner showers as well as screwing trucking companies out of millions.

Here's the deal: He's used to snapping a finger, or making a statement in a meeting, and having everyone bow down to him.

Hey, James, running a winning nfl team ain't like that. Sure, you made a lot of money with fancy new scoreboards, and changing the uni's. Now what?

Now nothing. You could have stopped your sentence after "you made a lot of money." Success in his mind.

Now he's in PR-spin mode to make it "look" like they're "trying to fix things". Why? Well he needs idiots to keep showing up and buying this crap so he can keep making money...which is the only thing that matters...back to my first point.

I don't think it will matter. Joe has made his money and now I am sure he wants to win. Why should he trust that it is going to happen here?

The guy is smart. I only gave him ten years as a player then get out while healthy.

Well, besides getting to the Pro Bowl 10 consecutive years and getting paid, all he is missing is a SB ring. Not many guys get a shot at that so if he wants a ring, then that is all that is left for him. Dang, he is on track for Hall of Fame when he retires, right?

I think we are hearing emotion from a brutal season with many ups and downs...left everybody go home, get some time off, see how the FO and Coaching changes play out, and the decide. What if they make a blockbuster deal for both Sean and Drew in NO? You don't think that would be worth coming back for?

Joe Thomas has made millions and millions of dollars. He has never once chirped about playing under a contract that vastly underpays him for his quality of play. All he has said is that he loves this team, and wants to see it turn around.

He doesn't seem to me to be the kind of guy who chases the last dollar. I would bet that he has most of the money he has made, and if he walked away today, he would be an incredibly rich man.

Maybe he makes that decision. Who knows?

Joe Thomas has the second biggest contract of any left tackle in the history of the NFL.