Joe Thomas chuckled when the notion of him asking for a trade this offseason was mentioned.
"Sometimes," the Cleveland Browns' perennial Pro Bowl left tackle said, "there's a little bit of a misconception about how much control players have over their own careers."
Translation: The Browns didn't have to trade Thomas, even if he had asked for it.
The point to keep in mind, though, is that Thomas did not ask to leave the Browns. His disillusionment toward the end of his 2015 season dissipated when he saw the Browns had hired Hue Jackson to be the coach.