Hyde: It’s time to remember The Forgotten Dolphin | Commentary

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…