CLEVELAND: Browns 10-time Pro Bowl left tackle Joe Thomas wants to help No. 1 overall pick Myles Garrett reach his All-Pro potential.
As the starting right defensive end in the 4-3 base defense of new Browns coordinator Gregg Williams, Garrett will face Thomas whenever the veteran offensive lineman practices.
In a perfect world for the Browns, Garrett will learn invaluable lessons from testing his pass-rush moves against a future member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“Just like the old adage, you play against good competition, you’re going to get better,” Thomas said Tuesday after a groundbreaking ceremony for a new football field at John Adams High School, a project funded by Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam. “Hopefully I’m still good competition at this stage in my career, but I think having a good, competitive battle, that can only be good for him.
“He’s shown an interest in learning, and I’m a player that really likes to try to help teach and impart any wisdom that I’ve gotten over the ages on some of those young guys. So it will be fun for me, too, to be able to try to help as best as I can and try to get him to think like an offensive tackle and hopefully turn him into the great player I think he can be.”
Thomas is eager to help. He considers himself a sort of player-coach and told rookie tight end David Njoku as much when the first-round pick asked him last week if he was a coach.
Garrett has been picking Thomas’ brain for the past couple of weeks.
“[Thomas has been telling me] that he’s going to whoop my behind,” Garrett said recently during rookie minicamp. “I’m sure I’ll take some licks, but [he’s told me] how to keep my body healthy, make sure I come out every day with a positive attitude. And he likes being a mentor, so just seeing how he can help me the best, that’s what he’s been focused on.”
So is Thomas, 32, eager to school Garrett, 21, on the practice field?
“It will be fun,” Thomas said. “I’m sure he’s got a lot of energy and athleticism, which is something you lose when you get older, so it will be a good battle, I’m sure, in training camp.”
In January, Thomas appeared on the Dan Patrick Show and said the Browns should draft a pass rusher with the first pick. He got his wish on April 27.
“[Garrett] clearly became the consensus No. 1 pick, and I was excited to take a pass rusher because it’s an impactful player at a position of need,” Thomas said. “And I think sometimes people reach for a quarterback at No. 1, and then it takes a long time to develop him, and if they don’t have the right system and the right people in place around them, sometimes it’s hard for them to have that success because you are going to the worst team in football usually when you’re the No. 1 pick. For us, I think it was a no-brainer to go and draft a pass rusher. Myles became that clear choice.”
It remains to be seen whether Garrett meets the expectations tied to the top pick, but Thomas has yet to be disappointed.
“I’m just impressed with his demeanor and his willingness to learn and his humbleness,” Thomas said. “But also you see that fire that’s burning inside him to be great, and I think those are the hallmarks of guys that have a chance to be really excellent football players.”
Quarterback competition
Thomas supports coach Hue Jackson’s choice to enter organized team activities May 23 with Cody Kessler as the first-team quarterback in an open competition for the starting job. Jackson confirmed the plan Saturday.
“I think that’s probably the right move,” Thomas said. “Cody did an amazing job as a rookie third-rounder [this past season], really didn’t get a lot of opportunity with the first unit until he got thrown into the fire in the middle of the season, and I thought he did a great job. I’ve seen improvement to the untrained eye already this spring. So I think giving him the job right now or at least putting him in the one slot right now is a great move by Hue.”
Kessler will vie with rookie DeShone Kizer, a second-round pick, Brock Osweiler and Kevin Hogan.
Thomas has only met Kizer a couple of times thus far.
“He seems like a really nice, humble kid,” Thomas said, “and he’ll fit in really well.”
Imperfect system
Thomas discussed his belief that the drug testing procedures at the NFL Scouting Combine are flawed.
Thomas first made his stance known on Twitter last month after news surfaced about safety Jabrill Peppers submitting a diluted urine sample at the combine. Coincidentally, the Browns later drafted Peppers in the first round, and because the NFL considers a diluted sample at the combine a failed test, he’ll begin his career in the first stage of the league’s substance-abuse program. Peppers said drinking a lot of water caused the diluted sample.
Thomas explained when the NFL visits team headquarters 10 to 15 times a year to test players, it’s not unusual for a someone to submit a diluted sample. The tester knows right away whether a sample is diluted because a device is used to immediately test it. If the sample is diluted, the tester asks the player to submit more urine samples until one of them isn’t diluted. This has happened to Thomas.
“It’s a very simple, easy process that is nothing nefarious involved,” Thomas said. “But for some reason, at the combine, you give them a sample, and they don’t test it in front of you.”
In other words, prospects at the combine don’t receive a mulligan in the event they submit a diluted sample.
“You give them a drug test because you want to know if they’ve taken the drugs you’re testing for or if they haven’t,” Thomas said. “And if you don’t test it, which is what a dilute is, it’s like an incomplete on an exam. You don’t even know what was in his system. And so the coaches don’t know if he was using those drugs. The NFL doesn’t know, and they don’t know if he wasn’t. Why wouldn’t you just test him again? [That’s] basically the bottom line. It just seems like a flawed system that just needs to get fixed.”
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/abj.sports.