BEREA, Ohio — It’s fitting that former Browns left tackle Joe Thomas crashed the Zoom call for kicker Phil Dawson, a member of the Browns 2024 Legends class being inducted this weekend. Earlier in the call, he cited the support he got from players like Thomas when discussing his longevity in the NFL.
“I got a message from Joe Thomas this morning and the things he said to me, I can’t even believe because I was just the kicker over there doing my thing,” Dawson said, “and here’s the greatest left tackle to ever play professional football thanking me for the job I did and how I helped him. That’s the special sauce, when your teammates and coaches could count on you to do your job. I can’t think of anything more rewarding than that.”
Dawson spent the first 14 years of a 20-year career with the Browns, the team’s kicker from the time they returned to the league in 1999 until he was allowed to walk in free agency after the 2012 season.
“I wanted to earn the trust and respect of my teammates and coaches, and then if it grew from there, that was great,” Dawson said. “Obviously anyone likes to earn trust and respect. I think I did that with the fans, and I think this honor this weekend shows I did so for the city and the organization, but my focus was to be a dependable, reliable player that my teammates and coaches could count on to do his job. And I just kind of went to work, and I can remember waking up like year 10, for example, and I couldn’t believe it.”
It wasn’t always easy for Dawson. After talking about people having kind words for him in and around Cleveland when he played here, he added, “I shouldn’t say always. Those early years, they made me earn my keep, which I appreciate.”
Not only did he earn his keep, he created core memories for Browns fans, especially in 2007 when he made a game-tying kick that bounced off the left upright and the bar behind the crossbar in Baltimore or, a month later, when he accounted for six of the Browns’ eight points in a blizzard game win over the Bills, including a 49-yarder in the second quarter.
That field goal holds an even more meaningful place for Dawson now that he will be joined by former Browns play-by-play voice Jim Donovan as a Browns legend. Dawson recalled Donovan calling back to his field goal against Baltimore, saying, “He did it again!”
“I liked that ‘He did it again’ in the Blizzard Bowl,” Dawson said. “I mean, how did he remember that in that moment? There was so much else going on, yet he just could do it. I mean, he’s calling a game and all the things that go into that specific moment, yet he never forgot about the broader context. Obviously, he understood Cleveland and so he could bring an element to what the city was feeling, what the city was frustrated with, what the city was ready to celebrate.”
Dawson and Donovan — and Thomas, too — all have something in common besides, after this weekend, being members of the team legends club. They all represent bright spots during some of the team’s darkest times. There wasn’t much winning, but you could always look forward to seeing Thomas and Dawson perform and hearing Donovan narrate it.
“The memories that I most cherish probably aren’t the kicks or the big wins,” Dawson said, “it was the little things, to see the fans continuing to come in those lean years and support our team. The passion when William Green ran around right tackle against the Falcons (to clinch a playoff berth in 2002), and it was our first kind of meaningful December game and to hear the city come alive, they had been waiting ever since the Browns came back for us to pull through in a meaningful game and just hearing that passion.”
Phil Dawson watched a Browns game for the first time as a fan last season.John Kuntz, cleveland.com
One of Dawson’s biggest regrets was that he didn’t get to say goodbye to Browns fans properly when his Browns career reached an unceremonious end after they allowed him to sign with the 49ers.
“Leaving when I did was not what I wanted,” Dawson said. “Just unfortunately, that’s how it went. And being so close to (Lou Groza’s points) record, that was a hard pill to swallow. I felt like I still had a lot of good football left in me, and hopefully I proved that in the six years I played after I left.”
He went on to kick four years in San Francisco before ending his career with two years in Arizona. The Browns, meanwhile, floundered trying to find his replacement — it took them a decade before landing on Dustin Hopkins, who they acquired in a trade with the Chargers just before the start of the 2023 season.
“I’m fired up for Dustin,” Dawson said. “Y’all finally got another Texas boy up there kicking the ball. Maybe there’s something to that. We grew up kicking in the wind, and last time I checked the wind blows a little bit in Cleveland.”
Dawson did get a chance for some closure when he returned last season to do the pregame guitar smash prior to the Browns’ win over the 49ers on October 15. He said it was the first time he had been to a Browns game as a fan.
“Getting a chance to hear that roar one more time was really cool,” Dawson said. “I missed that roar.”
Typical of Dawson, he hopes the roar on Sunday is more for Donovan than for him.
“I sincerely hope that people will focus on Jim and celebrate what he’s done for the Browns,” Dawson told the team website. “I was just one of many players trying to do his job. There was only one Jim Donovan. So, I’m thrilled that he’s going to be going in with me.”
