They’re not just regular Joes.
Indeed, left tackle Joe Thomas and cornerback Joe Haden are the two best players on the Browns.
And if you were them, wouldn’t your head be spinning over the departure of a number of the team’s most talented players since free agency began?
Center Alex Mack.
Safety Tashaun Gipson.
Wide receiver/returner Travis Benjamin.
Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz.
Cornerback/special teamer Johnson Bademosi.
And that’s just the list as of this writing. By the time you read this, there could be more names on it, and perhaps more still yet by the time you finish reading this. So stay tuned.
Thomas, a Pro Bowler in all nine of his seasons since being taken by the Browns at No. 3 overall in the 2007 NFL Draft, is headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday. On a team that has a tremendous lineage at left tackle, he might be the best of all-time, even better than the great Lou Groza, already a Hall of Famer.
Haden, twice a Pro Bowler since being drafted at No. 7 overall in 2010, is one of the best cornerbacks in the game when he’s healthy, which he wasn’t last season. But he expected to be back and ready to go in 2016,
They would be stars on any team in the league, but their presence has loomed even larger over the years on Browns teams so short on talent. Now that the talent level has been reduced – some would say significantly — the shadows they cast are bigger – much bigger – and as such they must feel like they’re out on an island somewhere, separated from everyone and everything in the organization.
With that, then, Thomas and Haden have to be wondering – their remaining teammates have to wondering, the fans have to be wondering – if they’re the next to go, not by free agency since their contracts lock them in for the foreseeable future, but by getting traded for much-needed assets.
The Browns have already lost a lot of well-known faces this offseason, but with all due respect to those players, it would something totally different altogether to lose Haden and Thomas. When you think of the Browns, you think of those two men, so getting rid of them would be cutting back into the foundation of the franchise.
Can the Browns afford to do that? Can they afford to cast adrift those two players’ talent and leadership? Can they afford to part ways with them from PR and perception standpoints? They are really all the Browns have left right now.
But at the same time, do Thomas and Haden want to be part of what looks to be a major rebuilding project – even more so than it already appeared before free agency began? Because they have invested so much time and effort here and suffered through all the losses, do they want to stick it out so they’ll be able to enjoy it and appreciate it if things get better? Or would they rather go where they have a chance to win now?
Those are intriguing questions, ones for much there are no good answers right now since no one at Browns Headquarters is talking. They’re all hunkered down in bunkers somewhere, and it’s no telling when they’re finally come out.
To be sure, what the Browns have done thus far in free agency – or, as it were – haven’t done – has opened up numerous cans of worms. To guess at this point what the Browns will look like by the start of the regular season – heck, for that matter, by the time the draft gets here – would be just that, guesses, and perhaps not even good ones at that.
If the Browns wanted to become the focus of the pro football world, then they have done just that. Everybody is watching, but for all the wrong reasons.
And if the Browns get rid of the two extraordinary Joes, then everyone will be watching even more.
