If you look at today’s college and professional sports landscape, one thing you’ll notice across all leagues (except for maybe the NHL) is that there is very little loyalty between a franchise and the players to stay committed to each other.
This in no small part is due to the athletes prioritizing finding the biggest contract available to them, which in some ways makes sense. To be fair, situations where an athlete leaves a team aren’t always the fault of the players. But there are significant downsides to this approach from a fan’s perspective, not the least of which is feeling like players don’t value being loyal to a team for that long.
This is a trend that former Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Joe Thomas noticed. The recently-inducted Hall-of-Famer played for one of the worst franchises during his entire career, with the Browns amassing an appalling 48-119 record in his 11 years with the team. That included an 0-16 season in 2017 (his final year in the league), and Cleveland only eclipsed seven wins once in his stint with the team (they went 10-6 in 2007 but missed the playoffs).
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Thomas was an exceptional player - as the Hall of Fame nod indicates - so he had a number of chances to jump that sinking ship and play for better teams. But Thomas said that getting more money or more wins wasn’t of utmost importance during his career.
"I think (loyalty) was always important to me," Thomas said. "It was a value that my parents taught me when I was a kid – the importance of loyalty to your family, your community, your faith, your church, your friends. To me, it always carried over to sports, too, because I grew up in the early ‘90s watching football. There really wasn’t a lot of player movement."
The persistent defeats never dampened his love for Cleveland, or his availability on the field. He holds the record for consecutive snaps played, with 10,363.
"I think as a player it was important to me to be loyal to Cleveland and the Browns and the organization and my teammates," he said. "It was easy for me to love sticking around even though we didn’t always have the most success."
What Thomas' loyalty cost him in wins, it was compensated by the many meaningful relationships in his career, as evidenced by all the people who congratulated him on making it to Canton.
The sports market is ever-changing, so the days of players and franchises valuing a long-last relationship with each other might be over. But for many fans, sports would be more enjoyable if players displayed loyalty like that of Thomas.
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