Gold Jacket Spotlight: Family comes first for Joe Thomas

Commitment. 

Hall of Famer tackle JOE THOMAS exemplified that characteristic on and off the field from the beginning of his National Football League journey through his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement in 2023.

This week’s Gold Jacket Spotlight explores Joe’s journey from a draft day fishing trip to a Bronze Bust.

“I had never grown up watching the draft,” Joe told Jason and Travis Kelce during an interview on their podcast “New Heights.” I never watched the draft and dreamed of that moment. Of course, as a kid, I wanted to play in the NFL.”

One activity Joe did regularly as a kid was go fishing with his dad. He was committed to doing the same on draft day Saturday.

“I always had a tradition on Saturdays as a kid growing up that I would go fishing with my dad. That was our thing; that was our time together,” Joe told the Kelce brothers.

While the League made several attempts to persuade Joe to be one of the five players it would invite to the draft that year, Joe was consistent in his responses confirming he would be in Wisconsin fishing that day, not sitting in Radio City Music Hall in New York waiting for a team to select him.

“This is like the only little window to reconnect with family and friends before you’re pretty much disconnected for a year,” Joe professed while discussing his preference to spend time with family rather than attend the draft prior to entering his first season in the NFL. 

While Joe was catching “a couple of brown trout,” he was, ironically, chosen as the third overall pick of the 2007 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns.

A Wisconsinite since birth, Joe was pleased to be starting his professional career in Cleveland.

“It was really important for me to stay in the Midwest. I was really interested because, East Coast fans are incredible, there’s a lot of them and they’re super passionate. But, I think there is something throughout the Rust Belt, in the Midwest, that’s all they got is their team,” Joe said. “They just love it, and they just absorb every single little thing, every little detail that comes out of there. They are ‘ride or die’ no matter what happens, and I knew that’s how the Browns’ fans were.”

As the team experienced little success during his 11 seasons career, Joe’s commitment provided Cleveland fans a ride that involved starting in each of his 167 games and amassing 10,363 consecutive snaps, widely believed to be an NFL record.

Joe is one of only five players in NFL history to earn a Pro Bowl selection in each of his first 10 seasons (2007-2016) and the first offensive lineman to accomplish that feat.

Named as the Browns’ Walter Payton Man of the Year three times (2010, 2012 and 2016), Joe was committed to the Cleveland community as well.

Joe’s commitment to family again was demonstrated during his enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Joe selected his wife, Annie, to present him for enshrinement and, in an emotional family moment, his four children joined him on stage at the Enshrinees’ Gold Jacket Dinner after their dad received his iconic jacket from Hall of Famer JEROME BETTIS.

The Browns and Joe shared a commitment to each other when the former left tackle announced the organization’s second-round draft selections at the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay, in Joe’s home state.

After announcing Cleveland’s first selection the second round, Carson Schwesinger, Joe, perhaps, started a new family tradition when he returned to the stage with his son, Jack, two picks later to announce Quinshon Judkins as the Browns’ next choice.