‘Man crush’ brought Thomas news of his induction
Though Joe Thomas has idolized Walter Jones for years, the two legendary left tackles hadn’t spent quality time together until Thomas’ “man crush” arrived at his doorstep a few weeks ago.
“I never really had a chance to get to meet him other than just saying hi briefly on the field until he came to the house,” Thomas said Wednesday during a Zoom session with reporters who cover the Browns. “And then pretty soon my 4-year-old daughter [Reese] is like reading him bedtime stories and wanting to give him some of her stuffed animals.”
It’s amazing the doors the Pro Football Hall of Fame can open.
A 10-time Pro Bowl selection who retired in 2018, Thomas was voted a first-ballot member of the Hall of Fame, with the results revealed Feb. 9 during the “NFL Honors” awards show. He and others from the nineman Class of 2023 will be enshrined Aug. 5 in Canton.
Thomas learned the oncein-a-lifetime news Jan. 27 through a special visitor and had to conceal it from the general public for weeks. Clad in his gold jacket, Jones knocked on the door of the Thomas household in Wisconsin to welcome Thomas to the Hall of Fame.
As a young player, Thomas thoroughly studied Jones, a former Seattle Seahawks nine-time Pro Bowler. When Thomas’ son, Jack, saw Jones, a member of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2014, and realized why the massive man had arrived at the front door, he began yelling, “We made it, Dad! You made it!”
Recalling the scene caused Thomas, 38, to become choked up again Wednesday.
“Instantly, it just knocked me off my feet emotionally to know that my wildest dreams of playing football and getting into the NFL were never this great,” Thomas said. “And the fact that my idol told my son who told me the great news just made it even better than I could have ever scripted.”
The NFL careers of Thomas and Jones overlapped for two seasons, and the two offensive linemen appeared in only one game together. When Thomas was a rookie third overall pick in 2007, the Browns hosted the Seahawks and Jones in a 33-30 Cleveland win.
“[Longtime Browns equipment manager] Brad Melland, he had spent a bunch of time in Seattle, so he knew Big Walt, and I think he knew that I had like a man crush on him, and the way he played, he was kind of my idol,” Thomas said. “I remember when I got to the stadium before we played the Seahawks as a rookie, [the equipment staff ] had printed out a picture of Walter Jones, and they put it in my locker. And I can’t remember if [Melland] wrote something on it pretending to be like Walter or if it was just a picture.”
Either way, Thomas merely spoke to Jones in passing all those years ago. Late last month, they hugged upon reuniting.
“Welcome to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2023,” Jones said, prompting Thomas to embrace him.
In the whirlwind of the Hall of Fame reveal, Thomas spent time with former teammates Alex Mack, Joel Bitonio and Colt Mccoy in Arizona, the home of Super Bowl LVII. Thomas and his wife, Annie, took their four children to the game this past Sunday, when Thomas met another one of his heroes, Hall of Fame left tackle Orlando Pace.
“All those guys knew that I was becoming part of that [Hall of Fame] family,” Thomas said. “That was really, really awesome having that opportunity to just spend time with the greats that came before you.”
Thomas said he received more than 300 text messages the night of the Hall of Fame announcement. By the time he had spent a couple of hours responding, the number of unread messages had climbed to more than 300 again. Among those who have reached out are many former Browns teammates and big NFL names, including Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning.
“It’s certainly been a little bit overwhelming emotionally at times,” Thomas said. One such moment occurred Feb. 10 during the Merlin Olsen luncheon. Thomas and the other new inductees were honored and presented their rings of excellence in front of a large group of Hall of Famers.
“I remember my knees just crumbling and going weak,” Thomas said. “I was just so overwhelmed with emotion in that moment that I lost, like, dexterity and the ability to think of what I was trying to say.”
Thomas was also measured for his bronze bust during what the Hall of Fame calls “Sizing Saturday.”
“That made it the most real because you sit with the sculptor who’s a world famous sculptor who does a lot of the busts,” Thomas said, “and he’s measuring every little nose hair that you got and the giant ears I got.”
Soon those nose hairs and ears will be in the Hall of Fame, not far from where Jones has been immortalized, too.