Wednesday, Aug. 19 (AM) – It is times like these that people should appreciate the Browns’ Joe Thomas the most.

We say should because he’s a left tackle, which, while it’s considered a skill position by football people, is hardly viewed as such by the average fan, who busies himself watching quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends and, from time to time, perhaps even the cheerleaders, if only briefly. Ahem.

But Thomas, by far the best player on the Browns, deserves to be scoped out on every play because he is headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday after having made it to the Pro Bowl in each of his eight seasons. Even if he turns into “Fat” Freddie Childress – remember him, a Browns right tackle in 1992 who was as wide as he was tall and as slow as the traffic in your most dreaded morning rush hour? – Thomas will still go to Canton. He’s already established his greatness.

And part of that greatness is that in his career, he has never missed a game, or even a snap, which numbers 128 and 7,917, respectively. He’s a positive influence in the locker room, he performs at a high level game after game after game, and he’s a gamer – a real ironman. You can’t get any better than that.

We mention all this because the Browns have more injuries than they do players at most position areas in this training camp. The defensive secondary has been almost wiped out. Hanford Dixon had better lay low, or else the Browns may search him out to see if he has any eligibility left.

So while even the top Browns, such as Pro Bowl cornerback Joe Haden, the second-best player on the team, miss time (his is the injury of choice, a pulled hamstring), Thomas just keeps rolling along. When Thomas does get hurt –and we need to knock on wood when we say this – he gets right back up and is good to go shortly thereafter, which was the case in a practice last week when his knee got dinged as a teammate rolled up under him.

Thomas is the guy the Browns can always count on, even when everything around him is in shambles, which has been the case for way too much of his career, and is the case again now with there being a line out the door of the trainer’s room.

As Browns head coach Mike Pettine tries to navigate his way through this sea of health issues, at least he can find comfort in the fact that, though it may not seem like it right now, it could be worse.

Indeed, No. 73 – his lone superstar – could be on that injury list.