DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Joe Thomas: On Letting Young Players Get Away

Joe Thomas laments Browns letting Jabaal Sheard and other young players get away

By Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com
on October 05, 2016 at 9:46 PM, updated October 05, 2016 at 10:11 PM

BEREA, Ohio — Joe Thomas lamented the fact that he'll have to try to hold off Patriots defensive end Jabaal Sheard on Sunday instead of watching him get after Tom Brady.

Signed by the Patriots in 2015 after the Browns let him walk in free agency, Sheard is the starting right end and has three sacks in four starts — almost his goal of one sack a game that he had here. Last season, he had eight in his 13 games in New England, mostly coming off the bench.

"Jabaal's playing great,'' Thomas, the All-Pro left tackle, said. "From the first game that he got to New England, he's played exceptionally well. I think he's got four sacks or something like that on the season right now, he's a force in the run game. And I'm sure New England's very happy that they got him."

Sheard is just more collateral damage from all the regime change in Cleveland. Thomas has watched one young talent after another walk out the door, including his good friend Mitchell Schwartz in 2016.

"That's one of the frustrations that I've had over the years and that's the problem when you constantly are hitting the reset button is guys that are really good players like that end up falling through the cracks or going to other teams,'' he said. "Because any time a new staff comes in, basically they wipe out the middle class. They keep a couple of your superstars and then they want everyone else being a rookie so that they can try to develop them.

"And when you keep doing that over and over again, you really lose all your middle class on your team and so guys like Buster Skrine, Jabaal Sheard, D'Qwell Jackson, Jordan Cameron, Travis Benjamin, those are the guys that they disappeared even though those were the guys that you drafted them, spent the time developing them and right when they're hitting stride in the peaks of their career, they end up going somewhere else and having great success for somebody else."

The list includes one of Thomas' other best friends in center Alex Mack, who's having an excellent season in Atlanta, and safety Tashaun Gipson, who's starting for the Jaguars. Somehow, Thomas has managed to keep his chin up through the mass exodus.

"It's always my job to do whatever I can to try to help my team win,'' he said. "I've always kind of been focused on doing my job to the best of my ability, because that's the best thing that I can do to help my team win. That's kind of what you have to focus on when you lose great players like that.''

In 2014, when Mike Pettine took over as head coach, he reduced Sheard to a part-time player who started only five games. He had two sacks in his 690 snaps. In New England, he's starting and flourishing in Belichick's 4-3 scheme.

"Well, as you know, Jabaal was very productive in Cleveland,'' Belichick said on a conference call Wednesday. "He did a good job playing the run, rushing the passer. He's a powerful player that can power rush, work inside, also work the edge. We've used him both inside and outside. We've used him some as a defensive tackle in pass rush situations and also some in coverage.

"He's been productive for us in a lot of different areas. A good kid, works hard, smart, very physically strong for his size, with good instincts, good awareness. He's a good football player.''

But Thomas already knew that.

Article

Where's the lie though.

What lie?

Did you mix this one up with the other thread?

we can always bring back manzel. he is free to play now after 4 game suspension. hehe

Ugh. My heart wants two things. To get this turned around before Thomas retires so he can experience some success here. But I don't know how much time he has left so I also want to trade him to a winner.

Ugh.

He deserves to be traded to a winner. I know that will upset some, but not everybody gets a happy ending the way they want.

i agree, I just hope he decides to go to canton in a browns uni

Which team's 4 games did he miss?

Never mind, I see in another thread he is now eligible. I thought one had to be on a team in order to serve a suspension.

Haslam keeps blowing things up and the roster keeps getting re-made. It's why we are perpetual losers.

Only in the sense that he kept hiring the wrong people to run his franchise..

Hopefully, he got it right this time.

Oh Stop with the money thing.. Enough already.

I love my massage therapist....

You can't put all the blame on Haslam, though ultimately he owns the responsibility. The problem is not having a FO that knows what it's doing, consistently, over time, and an embedded coaching staff that has vested interest in the players and knows and understands their strengths and weaknesses, and has a deep understanding as to how they fit into their systems. Hopefully that will change.

I've been very critical of the FO, and some of the crucial errors they've made, but I do believe they can learn and grow. I've also had issues with some of Hue's decisions, and don't like what Horton has done historically. However, I do think this is the best staff we've had in a while, and do believe they are heading in a positive direction. We need an influx of talent, a franchise QB, time to reach the top of the learning curve for the young players, and they need time within the systems to achieve effectiveness.

Sheard (and others) are the victims of all the rampant change and ineptitude. I do believe that is changing. But hell, who knows? I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Like always.

Yes, but isn't Haslam to blame for that?

I don't know that blame and responsibility are the same things here. Ultimately he is responsible for the recent hires, yes, however the blame falls on the regimes, IMO. Farmer, Heckert, Holmgren, Savage all came in as "qualified" talent evaluators. They were all useless. Inept and unqualified. The ensuing turnover with each new regime isn't just a by-product of "that's the way it is", it's also a by product of ego and a magnification of their ineptitude. IMO, that's all on them. Ownership may be responsible for "bad hires" but the unqualified idiots selling themselves as "capable and qualified" are to blame.

Cal, my point is that when your owner fires one regime after another....the things that Joe Thomas was talking about are inevitable. Thus, Haslam is to blame.

I edited your post in bold. Still falls on Haslam though.

I like this post and agree with you. I certainly don't agree with the FO and Coaching staff on everything, but I have maintained for years if you keep eliminating your decision makers every 1-3 years this is bound to happen. Haslam is guilty of this but so was Lerner. I hope Jimmy shows patience with Hue and the FO. He sounds like he has learned from his mistakes, but words are cheap.

I also would be surprised if the releases are the result of cheapness. It makes no sense to pay nearly a billion dollars for a franchise and then worry about 20-25 million in salary. If they win, the franchise value increases at a much larger amount, as do ticket sales, concession licensed products etc.

Blame whomever you want. It doesn't really matter. My point is that the regimes themselves are to blame for the inconsistencies by virtue of their incompetence. What good is keeping a regime that fails miserably in its duties? The turnover lies with ownership, yes, but the reasoning behind the turnovers is solid: the regimes sucked. Keeping them would have done more harm than good.

We don't know if all the regimes sucked. We never gave them adequate time to turn things around.

A lot of people absolutely love the new FO, but they hated Banner. That is hysterical considering Sashi was hired by Banner and got his line of thinking for him. Banner got one year. That ain't enough.

And we don't know if Chud, Norv, and Horton would have continued to suck. They also had one year.

We don't really know if we had to fire Pet. He had very little talent at his disposal.

Btw------------I think Joe T agrees w/me. Read the article again.

yup.

You and I have had many talks about this over the years.
It's sooo hard to be a fan of this team.

I bet this team would be a contender if we just stick with this regime for 5 years.

I blame haslam for blowing it up with chud. I don't with pettine. Chud was a rookie team owner mistake. Pettine was the right choice to fire. I mean lets face it the team was playing so flat for pettine you couldn't even stomach watching that crap. It was HORRID.

The made good offers to both mack and swartz. They just didn't want to play here. I'm fairly certain mack flat out hated it here cause mack went out of his way to make sure he could leave as soon as possible and then he did just that. Swartz wasn't all that great against the pass rush either so I don't view it as a major loss anyways. I just hope we draft a monster RT in this next draft if there is one available.

They were not sold on Benji cause Hue prefers bigger WR and Benji was injury prone and already been in concussion protocol several times.

Some of these cuts/releases were obviously character issue related and not cap related. Hue is on record saying he won't tolerate players behaving in ways detrimental to the team. I actually like that about him because it goes in line with Paul brown's and Bill Belichick(Paul's biggest fan) that you need men with strong character, physically strong and high motors, and intelligent.

NOW if at this point we don't start resigning our players long term then Haslam will be suspect but to this point I don't really see what could be done all that different.

Clem, that's why it is so important to squash any talk of blowing things up again.

Gotta give these guys a chance. Especially Hue.

You're confusing coaching staffs with FO regimes, missing the point entirely. I know you have an affinity for Banner and felt he got a raw deal. Maybe he did, but it was of his own creation by hiring that organizational cancer Lombardi. Oh, and BTW, here's their draft: Barkevious Mingo (No. 6 overall), Leon McFadden (No. 68), Jamoris Slaughter (No. 175), Armonty Bryant (No. 217) and Garrett Gilkey (No. 227). So yeah, even they sucked.

mac, you think one year is enough to properly evaluate a guy?

I don't wanna get into this Banner thing, but it kills me that guys who hated him love Sashi and what the new FO is doing.

On this point, we agree.

You forget that he didn't have a second round pick because of Gordon. He traded picks in two rounds to get higher picks in the next year's draft. And that year's draft was the weakest perhaps ever. You may also be forgetting the move to get Dion Lewis who unfortunately got hurt and getting a first round pick for TRich.

I am not trying to make this a Banner thread, but people trash him while leaving a lot of FACTS out!!!

I brought Banner up because he hired Sashi. Who do you think Sashi got his ideas about analytics from? Haslam? LMAO.

Haslam needs to stop blowing things up too soon. Period!!!!

Sheard is the only person I miss. The rest.. ehhhh..

Dqwell Jackson was all hype. Talks a good game, but was never consistent. Subpar run stopper, and easily taken out of plays.

Benjamin - already replaced (Coleman and crew)

Gipson - already replaced (Kindred)

can't remember who else was named.. I'm sure Mack and Schwartz.. wont comment because we have the #1 run game.

This post is beyond ridiculous. Good God! People rip mac all the time for his extremist posts, but those same people will allow this to pass like it is sensible.

DQ is better than Davis or Kirksey.

What has Coleman done?

Gipson has not been replaced. Kindred absolutely sucks in coverage. He is a SS. Nothing more. Gipson was a pro bowl player. Kindred will not be.

You think Erving and Pazstor are better than Mack and Schwartz???? LMAO...........only you and a some other homers would think such a ridiculous thing.

Hey now, no need to put Kindred down to elevate Gipson. True Kindred will never be a probowl FS, but I think he's playing extremely well for a rookie. Much better than Gipson was as a rookie. Not trying to pick a fight between the two of them, or us, for that matter. Just saying Kindred is going to be good and you can take that to the bank.

I like the guy's aggression, but he is a SS rather than a FS. He is a hard-hitting, downhill tackling SS, but is really clueless in coverage. He has blown coverage after coverage when they put him in the deep middle. I really wish they would stop doing that.

Gipson is far superior to any FS we have. We should have kept him. He is young and not that expensive.

Oh, before all the apologists go off.............I support Hue and the FO. I do NOT want them fired. I want them here for 3-4 years, but that doesn't mean I won't use my mind to make obvious observations.

I think Sheard, Ward, Mack, and Schwartz should all have been retained. D'qwell was alright, just needed more help beside him. Think about it, we have never really had a decent OLB the last 10 years. Letting those guys go didn't do us any favors in maintaining a cohesive defensive unit or send any positive messages about how we deal with contract negotiations.

I didn't forget, but that doesn't change the fact that they drafted how they drafted, and that Banner created his own cesspool. It also doesn't change the fact that although that was a poor draft class, there are fifteen pro bowlers from that class and Banner didn't draft any of them. I agree that the turnover needs to stop, but not just for the sake of stopping turnover. It needs to stop because we have the right people and they're doing a good job.

Sashi & Co. have made some stupid decisions. They've also made some smart ones. Aside from blowing the Wentz pick, they seem like decent talent evaluators, though time will tell. Hopefully, the up trend can continue. Hopefully they'll leave their egos out of the decision making process. Hopefully they get enough real talent in here to compete. And hopefully they can land a Franchise QB. If they can't do those things, they'll be gone too. If they can't do those things, I'll be fine with it.