Joe Thomas Reveals How the Browns Mentally Broke Him

Joe Thomas is not only an NFL Hall of Famer, but one of the greatest left tackles – and offensive linemen, really – in NFL history. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t enough to make the Browns successful.

Joe Thomas Explains How the Browns Mentally Broke Him

On the latest episode of Bussin’ With The Boyz with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, the Browns legend opened up about just how hard it was to be on a losing team for that long, including a time when he cried after he thought he played a perfect game against Tom Brady and the Patriots, a game the Browns lost, 30-0.

Joe Thomas says he cried after playing a perfect game in a 30 point loss to Tom Brady and realized he had spent 10 years fooling himself into believing the Browns were a Super Bowl team before each season

“The way I entered every season was like, if I need to get the most out of… pic.twitter.com/i9ksUFXIby
— dank (@cptdankkk) September 15, 2026

“The way I entered every season was like, if I need to get the most out of myself, I’ve got to convince myself this is a Super Bowl roster,” Thomas said. “That’s the mentality I have to have when I’m training, when I’m practicing, when I’m going through film study. And so you trick yourself every year, but after a while, you’re not that dumb anymore."

“Going into Year 10, we had traded away the first-overall pick. We were trading guys away, saving capital for the future. The writing was on the wall that we were in a pretty significant rebuild. I kind of knew at that time, even though I was still trying to trick myself, in the back of your head, you know you’re not going to be any good”

“Then, about midway through that 10th season, we were playing the Patriots. Tom Brady comes to town, and I fucking hated Tom Brady, as everybody did in the league. I hated the Patriots. I just wanted to smash him so bad. We lost like 30 to 0. And I remember sitting in the car after the game, and I was just crying. I had ice on both elbows and knees. I was in pain, my wife was driving, and I was just looking out the window. It was that moment when I realized I’d been kind of fooling myself for a while, and we were not going to win no matter what I did”

“She finally said, ‘Are you okay? Did you have a bad game?’ Then the tears really came because I said, ‘I played a perfect game, and we lost by 30.’ It really sank in at that moment that you don’t control the situation anymore. That feeling of loss of control is really hard. No matter what situation you’re in in life, it just feels like everything I’m working for, I have no control over the outcome. That’s a bad feeling”

So Much Hope and Optimism

The "one of us" motto seems to sum up Thomas' comments quite well. While the Dawg Pound was certainly never able to actually play for the Browns, many Cleveland fans have that same hope and optimism, especially before the season.

There's a reason so many Clevelanders believe the best time to be a Browns fan, at least for much of the last nearly three decades, is the offseason and the NFL draft. It's a time when many fans think the team might actually have some success, until that optimism becomes false hope with every week that goes by during the NFL season.

Even Thomas is already looking forward to the 2027 NFL draft. He admitted it before this season even started.

Thomas’ 11-Year Career of Individual Success With Very Little Team Success to Show For It

The HOFer doesn’t have a single Super Bowl championship ring or appearance to show for it. In fact, Cleveland not only never came close to the Super Bowl during Thomas’ 11-year career, but the Browns had just one winning season with Thomas anchoring the blind side: His rookie year when they went 10-6. In his final three seasons before he retired, the Browns went 3-13, 1-15, and 0-16. In all, Cleveland had a combined 48-128 during the Thomas era from 2007-17.

While the starting quarterbacks the Browns have had since 1999 have been revolving, so have Cleveland’s head coaches. In Thomas’ 11 seasons, he had six different head coaches – and we won’t even discuss how many defensive coordinators he had.

Thomas was a 10-time Pro Bowler, six-time first-team All-Pro, and member of the Hall of Fame All-2010s Team. But the Browns could never build a winning team around the Cleveland legend.

Amid so much losing, there was always one constant: Joe Thomas at left tackle. It just sucks that he dealt with so much mentally behind the scenes, much like many players do in every sport, but especially a contact one like football.

Maybe, just maybe, Thomas will be able to watch a true winner with the Browns before they make him – and much of the Dawg Pound – cry again due to continued losing.

Add us as a preferred source on Google