Q&A with Badgers OLT Joe Thomas
Offensive anchor states his case for a top-five NFL draft pick
By Court E. Mann
April 12, 2007
Wisconsin OLT Joe Thomas is widely considered the top offensive lineman in the upcoming NFL draft, projected to go as high as No. 2 and no lower than No. 5. We recently took a half-hour of Thomas’ time for an in-depth profile featured in the pre-draft print edition of Pro Football Weekly. As usual, there was a lot more to our sit-down than appeared in the feature, topics such as the best way to scout an offensive lineman, the increasing obsession with workout numbers, the stability of investing in the front five and, of course, bison hunting. Check out the full Thomas feature, which is available on newsstands and at PFWstore.com now, but enjoy the extended Q&A with Thomas below.
PFW: A lot of people came away real impressed with your workouts at the Combine. Was that a reflection of just being fully recovered from your (knee) injury?
Thomas: No question. I feel like I’ve been fully recovered since sometime during this past season. There was no question in my mind that I was going to test well. I’ve been training well. I perform well under pressure situations kind of like that was.
PFW: Comparatively, how did you feel about your health early in your senior season?
Thomas: I’d say after the first third of the season, I felt like I was 100 percent.
PFW: How did it feel to have some draft analysts suggesting back then that your stock was down, when you knew you were just ramping up from a significant injury?
Thomas: I wasn’t really worried about what anyone else had to say because I knew that I came back pretty fast from the injury, not missing any games. Coming back in six-seven months from the injury is pretty quick. I had a timeframe that had been set up with my coaches, and I knew I wanted to be 100 percent or close to it at the beginning of the Big Ten season, and once that Big Ten season hit, I was feeling 100 percent and people weren’t questioning anymore if my knee was back to normal or not.
PFW: Was there any concern about coming back too quick?
Thomas: There was a little concern. Anytime you’re returning back to contact after a serious injury like that, there’s a little apprehension. I think that’s one of the big barriers you have to get through, just the mental part of it. Just getting comfortable playing the game again on the knee, basically.
PFW: The injury obviously made the early-entry decision for you. Looking back on it — your senior season and where you are now projected to go — was that a blessing in disguise?
Thomas: I definitely see it as a blessing in disguise. It gave me the easy choice of coming back to school. It lent me the opportunity to focus on gaining some weight, building some strength in my upper body, and I think that really helped me a lot during the season. I think it also made me mentally tougher having to come back from a tough situation being injured in the offseason, missing all of spring ball. I feel like I’m a better person, and obviously I’m sitting in a better position this year going into the draft than I would have been if I would have declared last year.
PFW: Despite testing so well in Indy, you downplayed the results afterwards. Why is that?
Thomas: I believe 95 percent of what a team is looking for or what teams should be looking for is the way you played on film the previous year. While they might get temporarily infatuated with a guy that puts up great numbers at the Combine, when it comes down to it, you have to draft a football player, not a track guy.
PFW: Is film the only way to scout an offensive lineman?
Thomas: No doubt, especially being on the offensive line, you have to watch the film. It doesn’t matter if you have a good 40 or a good full agility or anything like that. If you see it on film, that’s where it matters.
PFW: So how does a man make his arms longer (32.5 to 33.75 inches)? I’m joking obviously, but to what do you attribute the measurement discrepancy?
Thomas: That’s a good question (laughing). I think with those arm-growing pills they give out. I think that was one of those things where whoever came in and measured me in the spring mis-measured. When you talk about measuring someone’s arm, I don’t think there’s exactly one way to measure it. You get a guy who measures it short for whatever reason and it kind of goes with the whole thing about numbers. I don’t think they’re very important.
PFW: But it was something you had to hear about throughout your entire senior season, right?
Thomas: It was kind of funny because I knew I didn’t have short arms. It was kind of a good feeling, because people always try to find something wrong with everybody. No matter who they are, no matter who the draft prospect is, they’re always going to try to shoot holes in you. To a lot of people, that was the hole in my game. ‘He’s got short arms, he can’t play football on the next level.’ Or whatever the argument was. Just knowing that I was going to go to the Combine, and they we’re going to measure my arms again, the right way, that was going to disappear like that because it’s fact.
PFW: Was that pretty gratifying since it’s one of the few criticisms of your game?
Thomas: Yeah. What do you say after that?
PFW: Is that a fairly average length then? 33.75 inches?
Thomas: For a guy my height, that’s pretty average, right around 34 inches is what you’re going to see. But like I said before, it’s hard to say that … if you’ve ever seen how they measure your arm, it takes into account how long your fingers are, so if you have a really long middle finger, your arms are going to be longer. But that’s not actually measuring your punch length, which is what they’re trying to get at, because you’re going to punch with the sole of your hand. I don’t even know how they would measure it to be perfectly accurate. To me, it’s not a great measure of if somebody’s going to be a good player or not, for sure.
PFW: At the Combine, you seemed to go out of your way to distance yourself from Robert Gallery. Expand on what you feel sets you apart from him.
Thomas: Well, without saying anything bad about Robert, because I think he’s a great player and he was somebody I really liked to watch in college and somebody that was really a fun player to watch and gave great recognition to the Big Ten and to offensive linemen in the Big Ten. He’s (been) in a tough situation with three different coaches on a team that hasn’t really won much. But I do think I’m a different player. I’m a guy who might rely on different things in my game to get by than Robert does.
PFW: How would you feel about beginning your career on the right side?
Thomas: There’s no problem for me to start at right tackle or even at guard. My goal is not to play a certain position, it’s just to be a starter next year. Whether it’s a right guard or tackle doesn’t matter to me.
PFW: Where have teams indicated you’d play?
Thomas: Cleveland and Detroit are both teams that have just re-signed their left tackle, and both those teams have asked me about playing right tackle and also asked me about maybe playing guard. There are a bunch of scenarios, whether they move their left tackle to the right side or me to the right side, but you can definitely tell that those teams have thought about it. I think one thing you’re going to find that’s consistent with most offensive line coaches is that they want to get the five best linemen on the field, no matter how much shuffling has to go on.
PFW: Rod Marinelli said at the Combine that you were the kind of team-first player who would move to the right side if need be. But some guys (i.e., Gallery) have struggled learning multiple positions along the line. How do you balance that?
Thomas: If I get to a team and they end up shuffling me around, I’ll worry about it when it happens. I imagine that wherever I end up, I’ll fit in right away at right tackle or left tackle or guard and just try to make myself comfortable. And I think I’ll be pretty good at learning a new position or learning a new side of the line.
PFW: Do you envision yourself long term at left tackle?
Thomas: I think so. You’re not going to draft a guy (in the top 10) that you’re going to stick at right tackle his whole career.
PFW: Is there a point at which you say “time for left tackle”?
Thomas: It would never be something I would say to a coach, but I imagine it will be just like it was when I (got to Wisconsin). I played right tackle and tight end in high school, and they moved me over to left tackle because it was the biggest position of need for them.
PFW: You’re up there among the top guys like Brady Quinn and Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson — players who fans can easily see their impact, really rally around, take in their fantasy leagues, etc. Tell the casual fan how one lineman can help turn a struggling team around?
Thomas: I think I can relate to the average fan. Your average fan is just a hardworking guy who likes to watch tough guys play football. That’s what an offensive lineman is, so I think I’ll relate very well to any fan.
PFW: You also talked a bit at the Combine about the “safety” of picking an O-lineman as opposed to the “bust” factor of QBs, WRs, etc. Can you explain that?
Thomas: Look at the history of the (OL) position, the last 15 years, and look at who are the guys considered a bust. People say Leonard Davis was a bust. But you look at it, and he was an alternate for the Pro Bowl a couple years ago, and he just signed a big free-agent deal, and he’s been a starter for like five years. Maybe he’s not the Hall of Famer or the perennial Pro Bowl guy they thought he was and that’s why they call him a bust. Whereas you call a guy a bust at a skill position, and the guy is out of the league in three years or it’s a quarterback who never plays a down. When you’re looking at those positions, you’re saying what am I getting when I draft a quarterback or wide receiver. If you draft a quarterback in the top five, there’s a 50 percent chance the guy will never play more than two seasons for you. You draft an offensive lineman, he’s going to be a six-year starter for you if he doesn’t get hurt. Maybe he’s not a Pro Bowler every year, maybe he’s not going to the Hall of Fame, but you’re getting a guy who is going to help you win.
PFW: Is it odd that NFL GMs haven’t picked up on this?
Thomas: I think they have. You look at offensive linemen, especially tackles, they keep getting picked in the top-five every year, definitely the top 10. Just about every year there is a guy picked in the top five, top 10. It’s harder to come by a great tackle, but that’s why the guys do get picked second, third, first overall. It’s harder to come by a great, great one. Whereas every year there’s a quarterback who could be the No. 1 pick, or a wide receiver or running back or whatever it is.
PFW: And linemen are certainly getting their money now …
Thomas: Yes they really are, and that’s because coaches and GMs are realizing how important it is to have a great offensive line. If you look at the teams that lost the most games this year, they’re the teams that allowed the most sacks. Oakland, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Arizona, those teams are all teams that allowed the most sacks in the league. It’s not hard to understand that if you don’t allow sacks and let your quarterback throw the ball, there are enough good quarterbacks and wide receivers in this league that you’re going to win if you give them enough time. It’s just a matter of giving them that time.
PFW: I read that you occasionally would make checks at the line of scrimmage? Have pro teams asked you about that and can you see yourself doing that at the next level? Do you know of any other tackles who do that?
Thomas: I don’t necessarily see myself doing that at the next level. If I needed to, if I saw something that needed to be checked, I would. But we had a situation this year, our starting quarterback for the past three years went down, and we had a guy come in who’d never really played before. I understand the game plan and was able to help him out a little bit at the line of scrimmage if he needed help reading the defense or something like that. The center is making your calls, but you may have a check-with-me play where you call a couple plays in the huddle. We had a few instances where our quarterback made the wrong check, and I would just try to correct him.
PFW: Is that an example you can point to regarding your playing intelligence?
Thomas: When you can talk defenses and reads and stuff like that, that shows your intelligence right away.
PFW: Your coaches and the people around you are quick to talk about your character off the field. Where does that come from and why is it important to you?
Thomas: It comes from my parents. That’s just the way they’ve raised me, to be humble. You never want to let your head get too big, because you’ll get shot down.
PFW: In the wake of negative headlines from Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson, do you get the sense that character is something NFL teams are more interested in learning about in the scouting/draft process?
Thomas: I think that’s a big part of a team’s (process) ... especially now, the more and more there have been incidents and stuff like that, the more and more coaches and GMs are worried about putting a team together that will have good chemistry, guys who aren’t going to get in trouble, guys who are good people. Because it’s a business, and fans aren’t going to keep coming to the most popular sport in America if they think everybody’s a bunch of jerks.
PFW: How do you demonstrate character in a short interview?
Thomas: I think (teams) do a lot of background work, talking to coaches, talking to teammates and stuff like that. So they have a good idea. Obviously anyone can put on a show for 15 minutes during an individual interview, but when teams get to know you outside the game, get to read up on you, talk to your coaches, I think that’s when they get a really good idea of what kind of person you are.
PFW: O-linemen historically are kind of infamously anonymous. I think you were surprised at the Combine with how many questions you fielded. You’re a pretty personable guy, how do you feel about that trend?
Thomas: That’s just kind of the role that linemen enjoy and relish on the team: The humble person who goes about their business and does their job. You can let your quarterback or your wide receiver stand in the spotlight. But the fun from a lineman’s perspective is the camaraderie that you have with the other guys and the stuff that you go through together.
PFW: You don’t see a lot of teams with O-linemen as primary, vocal team leaders, either, but I understand that’s something you take a lot of pride in?
Thomas: Definitely. I’m a guy who really does a good job of understanding his role on the team. I don’t have any illusions of coming in as a rookie and being the vocal leader, because a lot of teams already have that guy established. But I’d be a person who could very easily fit that role if they want it right away, and hopefully down the line after I’ve earned my respect, I’d really like to have that role on any team.
PFW: NFL defensive ends are among the most impressive athletes in sports. Is there anyone out there that you're particularly excited to face, or perhaps not that excited to face?
Thomas: I’m just really excited about having a great guy to prepare for 16 weeks out of the year. The games that I loved the most in college were preparing for the guys who were great players playing across from me. That was fun, it’s always a chess match with those guys, and that’s really the sort of thing I’m looking forward to in the NFL.
PFW: In this process ramping up to the draft, you’ve had a chance to sit and talk football with some NFL heavyweights, guys like Rod Marinelli, Mike Martz, Al Davis … what’s that like?
Thomas: It’s really neat. You hear about these guys all the time. You kind of get an image painted in your mind from hearing about them on the radio or on TV or reading about them, and to be able to put a personality with that face and find out more about that person — what’s really true about them or what’s not so true — it’s a lot of fun.
PFW: Who have you come away most impressed with?
Thomas: I’ve really enjoyed visiting with the guys from the Lions. I had a chance to eat dinner with them down at the Senior Bowl. I got a chance to meet with them a few times at the Combine and had my interview with them. And I really just came away impressed with the type of team they’re trying to build up there. I really just enjoyed the kind of personality the coaches and the staff brought to the organization.
PFW: I understand you’re on your way to go hunting?
Thomas: Yeah, I’m going up to Nebraska for a bison hunt to try to relax a little after the Combine and the pro day and everything. I really enjoy hunting and fishing in my free time. This is my first time doing a bison hunt.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFLDraft/Draft+Extras/2007/jthomas0412.htm
Offensive anchor states his case for a top-five NFL draft pick
By Court E. Mann
April 12, 2007
Wisconsin OLT Joe Thomas is widely considered the top offensive lineman in the upcoming NFL draft, projected to go as high as No. 2 and no lower than No. 5. We recently took a half-hour of Thomas’ time for an in-depth profile featured in the pre-draft print edition of Pro Football Weekly. As usual, there was a lot more to our sit-down than appeared in the feature, topics such as the best way to scout an offensive lineman, the increasing obsession with workout numbers, the stability of investing in the front five and, of course, bison hunting. Check out the full Thomas feature, which is available on newsstands and at PFWstore.com now, but enjoy the extended Q&A with Thomas below.
PFW: A lot of people came away real impressed with your workouts at the Combine. Was that a reflection of just being fully recovered from your (knee) injury?
Thomas: No question. I feel like I’ve been fully recovered since sometime during this past season. There was no question in my mind that I was going to test well. I’ve been training well. I perform well under pressure situations kind of like that was.
PFW: Comparatively, how did you feel about your health early in your senior season?
Thomas: I’d say after the first third of the season, I felt like I was 100 percent.
PFW: How did it feel to have some draft analysts suggesting back then that your stock was down, when you knew you were just ramping up from a significant injury?
Thomas: I wasn’t really worried about what anyone else had to say because I knew that I came back pretty fast from the injury, not missing any games. Coming back in six-seven months from the injury is pretty quick. I had a timeframe that had been set up with my coaches, and I knew I wanted to be 100 percent or close to it at the beginning of the Big Ten season, and once that Big Ten season hit, I was feeling 100 percent and people weren’t questioning anymore if my knee was back to normal or not.
PFW: Was there any concern about coming back too quick?
Thomas: There was a little concern. Anytime you’re returning back to contact after a serious injury like that, there’s a little apprehension. I think that’s one of the big barriers you have to get through, just the mental part of it. Just getting comfortable playing the game again on the knee, basically.
PFW: The injury obviously made the early-entry decision for you. Looking back on it — your senior season and where you are now projected to go — was that a blessing in disguise?
Thomas: I definitely see it as a blessing in disguise. It gave me the easy choice of coming back to school. It lent me the opportunity to focus on gaining some weight, building some strength in my upper body, and I think that really helped me a lot during the season. I think it also made me mentally tougher having to come back from a tough situation being injured in the offseason, missing all of spring ball. I feel like I’m a better person, and obviously I’m sitting in a better position this year going into the draft than I would have been if I would have declared last year.
PFW: Despite testing so well in Indy, you downplayed the results afterwards. Why is that?
Thomas: I believe 95 percent of what a team is looking for or what teams should be looking for is the way you played on film the previous year. While they might get temporarily infatuated with a guy that puts up great numbers at the Combine, when it comes down to it, you have to draft a football player, not a track guy.
PFW: Is film the only way to scout an offensive lineman?
Thomas: No doubt, especially being on the offensive line, you have to watch the film. It doesn’t matter if you have a good 40 or a good full agility or anything like that. If you see it on film, that’s where it matters.
PFW: So how does a man make his arms longer (32.5 to 33.75 inches)? I’m joking obviously, but to what do you attribute the measurement discrepancy?
Thomas: That’s a good question (laughing). I think with those arm-growing pills they give out. I think that was one of those things where whoever came in and measured me in the spring mis-measured. When you talk about measuring someone’s arm, I don’t think there’s exactly one way to measure it. You get a guy who measures it short for whatever reason and it kind of goes with the whole thing about numbers. I don’t think they’re very important.
PFW: But it was something you had to hear about throughout your entire senior season, right?
Thomas: It was kind of funny because I knew I didn’t have short arms. It was kind of a good feeling, because people always try to find something wrong with everybody. No matter who they are, no matter who the draft prospect is, they’re always going to try to shoot holes in you. To a lot of people, that was the hole in my game. ‘He’s got short arms, he can’t play football on the next level.’ Or whatever the argument was. Just knowing that I was going to go to the Combine, and they we’re going to measure my arms again, the right way, that was going to disappear like that because it’s fact.
PFW: Was that pretty gratifying since it’s one of the few criticisms of your game?
Thomas: Yeah. What do you say after that?
PFW: Is that a fairly average length then? 33.75 inches?
Thomas: For a guy my height, that’s pretty average, right around 34 inches is what you’re going to see. But like I said before, it’s hard to say that … if you’ve ever seen how they measure your arm, it takes into account how long your fingers are, so if you have a really long middle finger, your arms are going to be longer. But that’s not actually measuring your punch length, which is what they’re trying to get at, because you’re going to punch with the sole of your hand. I don’t even know how they would measure it to be perfectly accurate. To me, it’s not a great measure of if somebody’s going to be a good player or not, for sure.
PFW: At the Combine, you seemed to go out of your way to distance yourself from Robert Gallery. Expand on what you feel sets you apart from him.
Thomas: Well, without saying anything bad about Robert, because I think he’s a great player and he was somebody I really liked to watch in college and somebody that was really a fun player to watch and gave great recognition to the Big Ten and to offensive linemen in the Big Ten. He’s (been) in a tough situation with three different coaches on a team that hasn’t really won much. But I do think I’m a different player. I’m a guy who might rely on different things in my game to get by than Robert does.
PFW: How would you feel about beginning your career on the right side?
Thomas: There’s no problem for me to start at right tackle or even at guard. My goal is not to play a certain position, it’s just to be a starter next year. Whether it’s a right guard or tackle doesn’t matter to me.
PFW: Where have teams indicated you’d play?
Thomas: Cleveland and Detroit are both teams that have just re-signed their left tackle, and both those teams have asked me about playing right tackle and also asked me about maybe playing guard. There are a bunch of scenarios, whether they move their left tackle to the right side or me to the right side, but you can definitely tell that those teams have thought about it. I think one thing you’re going to find that’s consistent with most offensive line coaches is that they want to get the five best linemen on the field, no matter how much shuffling has to go on.
PFW: Rod Marinelli said at the Combine that you were the kind of team-first player who would move to the right side if need be. But some guys (i.e., Gallery) have struggled learning multiple positions along the line. How do you balance that?
Thomas: If I get to a team and they end up shuffling me around, I’ll worry about it when it happens. I imagine that wherever I end up, I’ll fit in right away at right tackle or left tackle or guard and just try to make myself comfortable. And I think I’ll be pretty good at learning a new position or learning a new side of the line.
PFW: Do you envision yourself long term at left tackle?
Thomas: I think so. You’re not going to draft a guy (in the top 10) that you’re going to stick at right tackle his whole career.
PFW: Is there a point at which you say “time for left tackle”?
Thomas: It would never be something I would say to a coach, but I imagine it will be just like it was when I (got to Wisconsin). I played right tackle and tight end in high school, and they moved me over to left tackle because it was the biggest position of need for them.
PFW: You’re up there among the top guys like Brady Quinn and Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson — players who fans can easily see their impact, really rally around, take in their fantasy leagues, etc. Tell the casual fan how one lineman can help turn a struggling team around?
Thomas: I think I can relate to the average fan. Your average fan is just a hardworking guy who likes to watch tough guys play football. That’s what an offensive lineman is, so I think I’ll relate very well to any fan.
PFW: You also talked a bit at the Combine about the “safety” of picking an O-lineman as opposed to the “bust” factor of QBs, WRs, etc. Can you explain that?
Thomas: Look at the history of the (OL) position, the last 15 years, and look at who are the guys considered a bust. People say Leonard Davis was a bust. But you look at it, and he was an alternate for the Pro Bowl a couple years ago, and he just signed a big free-agent deal, and he’s been a starter for like five years. Maybe he’s not the Hall of Famer or the perennial Pro Bowl guy they thought he was and that’s why they call him a bust. Whereas you call a guy a bust at a skill position, and the guy is out of the league in three years or it’s a quarterback who never plays a down. When you’re looking at those positions, you’re saying what am I getting when I draft a quarterback or wide receiver. If you draft a quarterback in the top five, there’s a 50 percent chance the guy will never play more than two seasons for you. You draft an offensive lineman, he’s going to be a six-year starter for you if he doesn’t get hurt. Maybe he’s not a Pro Bowler every year, maybe he’s not going to the Hall of Fame, but you’re getting a guy who is going to help you win.
PFW: Is it odd that NFL GMs haven’t picked up on this?
Thomas: I think they have. You look at offensive linemen, especially tackles, they keep getting picked in the top-five every year, definitely the top 10. Just about every year there is a guy picked in the top five, top 10. It’s harder to come by a great tackle, but that’s why the guys do get picked second, third, first overall. It’s harder to come by a great, great one. Whereas every year there’s a quarterback who could be the No. 1 pick, or a wide receiver or running back or whatever it is.
PFW: And linemen are certainly getting their money now …
Thomas: Yes they really are, and that’s because coaches and GMs are realizing how important it is to have a great offensive line. If you look at the teams that lost the most games this year, they’re the teams that allowed the most sacks. Oakland, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Arizona, those teams are all teams that allowed the most sacks in the league. It’s not hard to understand that if you don’t allow sacks and let your quarterback throw the ball, there are enough good quarterbacks and wide receivers in this league that you’re going to win if you give them enough time. It’s just a matter of giving them that time.
PFW: I read that you occasionally would make checks at the line of scrimmage? Have pro teams asked you about that and can you see yourself doing that at the next level? Do you know of any other tackles who do that?
Thomas: I don’t necessarily see myself doing that at the next level. If I needed to, if I saw something that needed to be checked, I would. But we had a situation this year, our starting quarterback for the past three years went down, and we had a guy come in who’d never really played before. I understand the game plan and was able to help him out a little bit at the line of scrimmage if he needed help reading the defense or something like that. The center is making your calls, but you may have a check-with-me play where you call a couple plays in the huddle. We had a few instances where our quarterback made the wrong check, and I would just try to correct him.
PFW: Is that an example you can point to regarding your playing intelligence?
Thomas: When you can talk defenses and reads and stuff like that, that shows your intelligence right away.
PFW: Your coaches and the people around you are quick to talk about your character off the field. Where does that come from and why is it important to you?
Thomas: It comes from my parents. That’s just the way they’ve raised me, to be humble. You never want to let your head get too big, because you’ll get shot down.
PFW: In the wake of negative headlines from Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson, do you get the sense that character is something NFL teams are more interested in learning about in the scouting/draft process?
Thomas: I think that’s a big part of a team’s (process) ... especially now, the more and more there have been incidents and stuff like that, the more and more coaches and GMs are worried about putting a team together that will have good chemistry, guys who aren’t going to get in trouble, guys who are good people. Because it’s a business, and fans aren’t going to keep coming to the most popular sport in America if they think everybody’s a bunch of jerks.
PFW: How do you demonstrate character in a short interview?
Thomas: I think (teams) do a lot of background work, talking to coaches, talking to teammates and stuff like that. So they have a good idea. Obviously anyone can put on a show for 15 minutes during an individual interview, but when teams get to know you outside the game, get to read up on you, talk to your coaches, I think that’s when they get a really good idea of what kind of person you are.
PFW: O-linemen historically are kind of infamously anonymous. I think you were surprised at the Combine with how many questions you fielded. You’re a pretty personable guy, how do you feel about that trend?
Thomas: That’s just kind of the role that linemen enjoy and relish on the team: The humble person who goes about their business and does their job. You can let your quarterback or your wide receiver stand in the spotlight. But the fun from a lineman’s perspective is the camaraderie that you have with the other guys and the stuff that you go through together.
PFW: You don’t see a lot of teams with O-linemen as primary, vocal team leaders, either, but I understand that’s something you take a lot of pride in?
Thomas: Definitely. I’m a guy who really does a good job of understanding his role on the team. I don’t have any illusions of coming in as a rookie and being the vocal leader, because a lot of teams already have that guy established. But I’d be a person who could very easily fit that role if they want it right away, and hopefully down the line after I’ve earned my respect, I’d really like to have that role on any team.
PFW: NFL defensive ends are among the most impressive athletes in sports. Is there anyone out there that you're particularly excited to face, or perhaps not that excited to face?
Thomas: I’m just really excited about having a great guy to prepare for 16 weeks out of the year. The games that I loved the most in college were preparing for the guys who were great players playing across from me. That was fun, it’s always a chess match with those guys, and that’s really the sort of thing I’m looking forward to in the NFL.
PFW: In this process ramping up to the draft, you’ve had a chance to sit and talk football with some NFL heavyweights, guys like Rod Marinelli, Mike Martz, Al Davis … what’s that like?
Thomas: It’s really neat. You hear about these guys all the time. You kind of get an image painted in your mind from hearing about them on the radio or on TV or reading about them, and to be able to put a personality with that face and find out more about that person — what’s really true about them or what’s not so true — it’s a lot of fun.
PFW: Who have you come away most impressed with?
Thomas: I’ve really enjoyed visiting with the guys from the Lions. I had a chance to eat dinner with them down at the Senior Bowl. I got a chance to meet with them a few times at the Combine and had my interview with them. And I really just came away impressed with the type of team they’re trying to build up there. I really just enjoyed the kind of personality the coaches and the staff brought to the organization.
PFW: I understand you’re on your way to go hunting?
Thomas: Yeah, I’m going up to Nebraska for a bison hunt to try to relax a little after the Combine and the pro day and everything. I really enjoy hunting and fishing in my free time. This is my first time doing a bison hunt.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFLDraft/Draft+Extras/2007/jthomas0412.htm
