Browns rookie OT Dawand Jones on chasing Joe Thomas’ legacy and how to make 31 grown men cry

CLEVELAND, Ohio — When you throw up on the sidelines of your first rookie minicamp practice for all the media to see and write about, there’s nowhere to go but up, right?
That’s the inauspicious way the NFL career began for Browns rookie right tackle Dawand Jones — pressed into service as the Browns new starter now that Jack Conklin is out for the season with a torn ACL and MCL.
But if it ends the way he plans, it’ll make for a great Chapter 1 or the perfect opening scene.
Besides, he had a good excuse for vomiting, and was even forewarned by offensive line coach Bill Callahan.
“He was like, ‘Are you sure you want to eat this close to practice?’” Jones, the Browns’ fourth-round pick out of Ohio State, told cleveland.com in a one-on-one interview during training camp. ‘I said ‘I should be all right because that’s what I normally did in college.’”
But Jones quickly discovered that he wasn’t a Buckeye anymore, and that the pace of an NFL practice was different.
“It wasn’t the conditioning part,” he said. “It was the tempo. The o-line drills are faster, and there were only two or three people out there doing new drills and stuff like that during rookie camp.”
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A man mountain at 6-foot-8, 374 pounds and the biggest player on the team, Jones stuck it out through the practice despite being doubled over at times, and never contemplated giving up. Callahan rode him hard like he does everyone else, making him repeat a rep over and over until he got it right, puking be damned.
“I told Coach Callahan (about being sick), and he understood,” Jones said. “There was nothing to do but get better the next day.”
Jones pulled himself together on the second day of rookie camp, taking whatever Callahan dished out and holding in his cookies. When the veterans showed up for mandatory minicamp, Jones was primed for the NFL workload and kept up with his new mentors.
“You see how the drill work is done and you see how it slowed down, honestly,” he said. “And I feel like having somebody go in front of you for a couple of reps really helped out.”
On the final day of eight practices at West Virginia’s Greenbrier Sports Complex in late July, Jones stalked away from a pass rush drill and whipped his helmet into the grass. A few moments later, he picked it up and tried again to execute the dang thing just like Conklin did.
“I’m a perfectionist,” Jones said. “I want to get everything right.”
Dawand Jones hugs a fan during Browns training camp in Berea.
Big steps for a big man
Callahan, seemingly a bit dubious at first, began warming up to him, noting how hard he worked and how much he cared.
“He’s getting better and maturing,” Callahan said shortly thereafter. “It’s small steps, and I think he realizes that he gets a little frustrated with some of the things that he’s not able to do yet, but we just keep preaching patience with him and buy-in.”
Working mostly at right tackle behind two-time All-Pro Conklin, Jones got the starting nod in the preseason Hall of Fame opener against the Jets along with the other rookies and backups while the starters rested.
But unlike the rest of the newcomers, Jones played all 74 snaps in the steamy heat at Canton’s Tom Benson Stadium — 13 more than the next guy, former Browns receiver Anthony Schwartz.
But if Callahan was trying to make him crack, Jones refused. He not only rose to the challenge that night, he also embraced it, allowing no sacks or pressures in 40 pass-block snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.
“We had an o-lineman go down with an injury early in the week, and I figured I was probably going to play the whole game,” Jones said. “I’m used to doing that. It was honestly fun to be able to play a whole NFL game even though I wasn’t seeing really exotic pressures or anything. It was just good to get the speed of the game, everything down.
“I really wasn’t nervous or anything like that. I felt like God put me here for this moment, just for me to go capture it.”
Jones — nicknamed Thanos, the giant villain from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — looked like he could swallow his opponents whole that night after casting them to the ground. By the end of the night, he was an internet sensation.
“His pass protection took some major steps,” Callahan said a few days later. “He still has a long ways to go yet. We’re still working on the run-technique aspects of his play to make him a more complete player. But it was good to see him perform under the lights against good competition, taking third-down sets, which are so critical to protection. A lot of positives.
“Looking at it, you say, ‘God, that was really good because he stayed in front, he got his man, he finished off.’ ”
Joe Thomas was honored at the Hall of Fame Game in August, where he saw the Browns take on the Jets, and Dawand Jones play every offensive snap.
Meeting the legendary Joe Thomas
During joint practices against the Eagles in Philadelphia, Jones met his idol, Browns Hall of Fame left tackle Joe Thomas, for the first time and was starstruck.
“I gave him a couple of tips at practice and he was like ‘Yes, sir, yes sir,’” Thomas told cleveland.com. “I’m like, ‘You don’t have to say ‘yes sir.’ You can say like, ‘screw you’ if you don’t agree. It’s just a conversation. This is not me dictating the Ten Commandments.”
But for Jones, the pointers could’ve just as easily been etched onto two stone tablets with all the reverence he has for the 10-time Pro Bowler.
“That’s my No. 1 goal,” Jones said. “You see the 73 up there (a big sign at camp). I get to talk to him every day.
“Honestly, one of my major dreams is to chase what he’s done here. I’d probably never get to his exact numbers or anything, but you want to chase his legacy and chase what he’s done. He set the standard for what I do at a tackle. You always want to be like Joe Thomas. He never missed a game. He never missed anything.”
When Conklin exited the first of the two joint practices in Philadelphia with a concussion, Jones stepped in with the first team and used the tips Thomas gave him to help him hold his own against the Eagles’ premier defensive linemen.
“One thing I was telling him, I just turn a little bit too early sometimes,” Jones said. “To help me stay square, I could just turn my shoulder in, kind of interlock your shoulders. I took that advice and it started to help a lot obviously.”
For Thomas, he immediately saw in Jones that same inner drive that prompted Thomas to proclaim during his own rookie minicamp in 2007 that he planned to be in the Hall of Fame someday. It’s the unrelenting quest for greatness and attention to detail that Thomas still hopes to see someday from left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr., the Browns’ No. 10 overall pick in 2020.
“The thing that impressed me the most was just the mindset that he had and the commitment that (Jones) had to be great,” Thomas said. “You don’t always see that with guys that are big and talented. Sometimes those guys have just had it come easy their whole life because he was a very athletic, big, strong, physical basketball player that kind of converted and played tackle.
“Sometimes those guys don’t really want to be great as much as they just became great because of their God-given abilities. But Dawand really seems to have the ‘it,’ that he wants to be great and I think in a lot of ways that’s the difference between the great players in the NFL and the guys that just kind of have a decent career and are never really able to tap their full potential.”
With a Hall of Famer on speed dial ready to impart all of his wisdom, Jones has been a sponge.
“He critiques my game,” Jones said. “I try to pick his brain and ask him what I need to do to get better.”
No one was happier than Thomas when Jones subbed for an injured Conklin during Sunday’s 24-3 victory over the Bengals and flashed some of the quick feet and mauling ability that tantalized the Browns before the draft. Pro Football Focus ranked him only 59th among qualifying tackles in the NFL for the Week 1 games, but he came in at 19th in pass blocking with a stellar 77.8 grade, allowing no sacks or pressures in his 20 such snaps.
“What awesome technique!” Thomas quote-tweeted a positive film critique of Jones. “Firm inside hand, great feet/balance, never leans on outside hand but uses it to punch and steer….bravo @dawandj79.”
Thomas knows that Jones will have one of the toughest matchups of his career against 2021 NFL Defensive Player of the Year T.J. Watt on Monday Night football in Pittsburgh next week, but Thomas will have some valuable Not Your Average Joe advice for him before the big game.
“If you run into (Jones), he’s going to kill you,” Thomas said. “A guy like T.J. who can bend and run fast will probably be his hardest matchup. He’s going to try to get him off balance and he’s going to try to get low and go around him with quickness and speed.”
Browns offensive line coach Bill Callahan works with Dawand Jones during minicamp in Berea.
Finally one-on-one with Myles Garrett
Jones, who turned 22 on Aug. 6, finally went head-to-head with Myles Garrett late in camp, with the four-time Pro Bowler getting the best of him most reps. But Garrett was on a hair-raising tear this summer, and not even a mammoth Avengers villain with 100 pounds on him could slow him.
“It went well,” Jones said of those initial encounters. “Myles is Myles. He’s a little bit different than everybody else. I feel like he put me at a good point of knowing where you stand. He told me I have a high ceiling and keep doing what you’re doing.”
Garrett also gives Jones pointers regularly, and will undoubtedly deliver plenty of Watt intel — and pass-rush moves — for next Monday.
“We talk every day,” Jones said. “I ask him what he sees, what he feels from tackles and stuff like that. He always just talks about weight distribution and how he feels it. One quick movement, he’s so fast and twitchy, you don’t want to overset, or overkick or overpunch. He’s so powerful, he’ll take advantage.”
In Philadelphia, Jones got to watch Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata — also a ginormous 6-8, 365 — work against Garrett and fellow Pro Bowl edge-rusher Za’Darius Smith.
“Just watching his game and just seeing how another bigger person moves, it was really nice,” Jones said. “He plays left tackle, which is a little bit harder than my position. And also being a bigger guy just like me, it’s hard to do it. So just watching him go against Myles every day, it was just good eye work to see. And also Lane (Johnson, 6-6, 325) on the right side.”
Dawand Jones works on his foot skills during rookie minicamp. Jones said the tempo of an NFL practice took some getting used to.
Future starting left tackle?
Speaking of the left side, Jones sees himself excelling over there someday, just like his idol Thomas. To directly follow in his footsteps, he must play the marquee position, and start stacking Pro Bowls. Wills is under contract through next season on his fifth-year option year at a guaranteed $14.175, but anything can happen.
“In college, I played both sides a lot,” Jones said. “If somebody ever went down in the game and they needed a left, it probably wouldn’t have been an issue just because I had played it so much. You even do it in your free time, just doing left tackle stances in case anything happens.”
Despite starting at right tackle for three years at Ohio State, he’s confident he can dominate on the left side in the NFL when the time comes. He’s already taken some reps there in practice.
“I just want to eventually master (right tackle here) and go to the left side and probably master the left side,” he said. “(I want to) understand the physics and everything on left tackle.”
Back in August, long before Conklin was carted off the field in agony against the Bengals, Jones was asked if he could play left tackle -- in Week 2 -- if pressed into service. Lo and behold, he’ll make his first NFL start in his second week, albeit on the right side.
“Week 2? Whatever they need me to do, I’m going to do it,” he said. “It’d be a tough job, but anything in front of me, I should be able to go capitalize on it. My main thing is focus on being great, being as good as possible, putting one day in front of another.”
From the paint to the chalk
It’s a far cry from Jones’ days as an Indiana high school basketball star, who like everyone else in the state, had pro hoop dreams as a kid.
As a senior at Indianapolis’ Ben Davis High, he set a school mark for field goal percentage while leading the Class 4A state runner-up on 11-game tear. Along the way, he averaged 17 points and nine rebounds, earning a spot on the esteemed Indiana All-Star Team.
But with his burgeoning size — 6-3 by eighth grade — his coaches talked him into giving football a whirl.
“They kind of like forced me,” Jones said. “Not forced me, but it was like, ‘Yeah, you should play football.’ I started off by picking the grass when I was first playing and stuff like that. I would make plays and didn’t even know I made ‘em.”
But who could blame him?
“Growing up in a basketball state, all you see is basketball players,” he said. “You never see really no football players from Indiana or Indianapolis where I’m from, make it to the league. Once you get to high school, you’d be like, ‘Oh, so and so is from here.’
“Once you grow up mature, you see the bigger picture and understand really where your mind should be at.”
But nearing his full size of 6-8 and pushing 380 as a high school senior, he drew basketball scholarship offers from Kent State and Ball State, and almost committed to play for longtime KSU coach Rob Senderoff.
“I really liked him,” Jones said. “He was like, ‘Yeah, this the last week I can take your scholarship.’ I was like ‘I appreciate you. Thank you. I’m just going to take a gamble on myself and see if I’ll end up with some offers after the football season.’ ”
Mississippi offered him, and the calls flooded in. Ohio State sent a contingent to Ben Davis and was sold. They gauged his commitment to football, and were satisfied.
“He told me, and I believed him,” OSU coach Ryan Day, then quarterbacks coach, told cleveland.com’s Nathan Baird in 2021.
Except for a brief dalliance with basketball again after his freshman year at OSU, Jones got his mind right. It was during March Madness in 2020 when Nebraska pulled some football players over to the team for the Big Ten tournament, and Jones responded “I want to play” on Instagram.
After that, he forged his burning hoops hopes into ironclad gridiron goals — and became a wrecking ball on the field.
“I switched all of my basketball dreams to football,” he said. “I let all of that go.”
He still loves the game, and “beat David Njoku pretty good” at one-on-one in training camp, where Kevin Stefanski pulls out a hoop every day and lets his guys get in touch with their inner LeBron. Jones has only played Garrett in knockout so far, but knows Garrett also had Division I basketball offers and has seen his thundering dunks.
For now, he’ll try to keep Garrett from getting to Deshaun Watson in practice rather than maneuvering past him for an easy layup. It could get increasingly more difficult as time goes on. By the time it’s all said and done, Jones could grow to 6-9 or taller.
“They say we don’t stop growing until we’re 25,” Jones. “I never had a growth spurt. I feel like I grew 2 inches every year. I’m a half now. Once my knees start hurting around that same time every summer, I’ll be knowing what time it is.”
An only child raised by his mom Deanna, Jones grabs his lunch every day from the Browns cafeteria and brings it out to the lobby, where he eats alone.
“I like the quiet,” he said.
A first-round talent who tumbled to the fourth over concerns he was still a hooper at heart, Big Thanos knocked over defenders like bowling pins in preseason and proved he has the immense talent to possibly follow in Joe Thomas’ footsteps someday.
“I’m just trying to prove every GM that passed up on me, what they missed out on,” Jones said, “but also just prove to myself, I can do it.”
If he keeps up like this, those other 31 personnel execs will be the ones getting sick to their stomachs.