Here, in this pause without games, we have time to dust off some archives, call up some memories and right some wrongs. Let’s remember the forgotten Dolphin enough to ask: Why isn’t Joe Thomas in the stadium’s Honor Roll?
There’s an easy answer. Thomas isn’t up there because so few remember him. Even fewer remember how he traded a top draft pick in 1970 for Paul Warfield or sold the Boston Patriots on a couple of honest-to-history, no-name players to get the heart of the No-Name Defense, Nick Buoniconti.
Maybe only Steve Spurrier remembers how Thomas went to the Gainesville office of the Florida quarterback’s lawyer for a talk before the 1967 draft and was put off as Spurrier played Solitaire during the conversation.