Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas previously hinted that he was unsure if he’d continue playing in 2018. While the veteran told ESPN.com’s Pat McManamon that Cleveland’s recent moves were certainly encouraging, he also said that they’d have no impact on his decision to retire or not.

“My decision will be based purely on my health,” Thomas said. “But I’m excited by the moves [general manager] John [Dorsey] made.”

As the writer notes, Thomas previously said that his decision to continue playing would come down to three factors: “Does he still love the game? Can he play at a high level? And is he healthy enough?” After having never missed a start during his first 10 years in the league, Thomas was limited to only nine contests in 2017 after suffering a torn triceps tendon. However, the lineman indicated that it’s injuries to his knee and back that have him considering hanging up his cleats.

The Browns handed Thomas a $3MM raise in November, making him the league’s highest paid offensive lineman in 2018 at a $13.5MM salary. Thomas is due to collect on a $3MM bonus on March 18. His status as the highest-paid lineman is still well deserved, as Pro Football Focus ranked Thomas fourth among 81 offensive tackle candidates.

“I don’t think there’s any real rush at this point,” Thomas previously said about his decision. “Obviously, they want to know before the draft and free agency, so that if they have make different plans if I’m not going to be there, they want to know about it. I told them I’ll make a decision when I’m ready and let them know and give them as much time as I possibly can.”

The Browns were mighty busy last week. On Thomas’ side of the ball, the team added quarterback Tyrod Taylor and wideout Jarvis Landry. With Josh Gordon and a pair of top-five picks, Cleveland could be eyeing their most talented offense in seasons.

Browns tackle Joe Thomas is still undecided about whether he wants to play in 2018. However, he plans on letting the team know his plans sooner rather than later. 

“I don’t think there’s any real rush at this point,” he told Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “Obviously, they want to know before the draft and free agency, so that if they have make different plans if I’m not going to be there, they want to know about it. I told them I’ll make a decision when I’m ready and let them know and give them as much time as I possibly can.”

The Browns gave Thomas a $3MM raise in November which would make him the league’s highest paid offensive lineman in 2018 at a $13.5MM salary. Thomas is due to collect on a $3MM bonus on March 18, but Thomas seems to be indicating that he’ll notify the team in advance of the legal tampering period on March 12.

In 2017, a torn triceps tendon ended Thomas’ NFL-record streak of 10,363 snaps, but that’s not the injury that has him on the fence about playing. Instead, Thomas says its his lingering knee and back issues that have him thinking about walking away.

If Thomas does take the field in 2018, he won’t rule out the possibility of continuing his career into 2019.

“I’m not ready to say anything definitively because I’d hate to be wrong,” he said. “Because I’ve seen how a lot of other guys’ careers has ended. I grew up in Wisconsin a Brett Favre fan and I’ve seen how many times he was definitely not going to come play and then he played for the Jets and the Vikings. So I don’t want to say anything definitively. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. But what I can say is this is my last year on my contract in Cleveland. I don’t want to play anywhere else. I guess I haven’t thought that far yet.”

In previous interviews, Thomas indicated that he would be more inclined to play next year if the Browns were positioned to win. The veteran is of the belief that the Browns at least have a chance at a turnaround season.

“Honestly, the way I look at 2018 for the Browns is $100MM in cap space, the first and the fourth pick,” he said. “If you look back historically, if you added two guys in free agency that were both $25MM a year, you could assume that they’re probably Hall of Fame-caliber. Then you add a first pick and a fourth pick who presumably could be Hall of Fame guys, or more likely probably Pro Bowl guys, you’ve now added four blue chip players to your roster. Now you’re totally transformed your team.”

Last week, the Browns gave injured offensive tackle Joe Thomas a pay bump for both this year and next year. The gesture was appreciated by the veteran, but he tells Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal that he is still undecided about his future. Here’s a look at some of the highlights from Thomas’ Q&A with Ulrich:

On whether his declaration that he doesn’t “want to go out like this” means that he’ll play in 2018:

I’ve told everybody that I’m going to sit down kind of after the season and take my time and make a decision when you’re in a little bit better mental state. Because right after you get hurt, your emotions are up and down, and during the season is a hard time to kind of make serious decisions on your career. So the offseason will be a time when I make a decision on that, but I think that [feeling] will certainly play into it. 

But on the other hand, you don’t get to choose how things end. Everybody wants the Jerome Bettis — what I mentioned in that column — where you go to your hometown, you win the Super Bowl and you ride off into the sunset. That’s the dream, but 1 in 100,000 players get to realize that. Even Brett Favre, you look at how he ended his career, losing the NFC Championship Game and getting hurt. What a great career, and he wanted to have that moment where you win the Super Bowl and you ride off into the sunset, but in the NFL, you don’t get to pick your exit strategy for the most part.

So if you do decide to come back and you say, “I don’t want to go out getting injured,” well, there’s no guarantee you’re not going to get injured again. So you have to be realistic about the possible outcomes of everything.

On the pay raise:

It’s just the way that the team shows their love and appreciation for you…The conversation came up about two years ago actually. So they’ve been talking about giving me a market adjustment for my contract since I did sign it so long ago [in 2011] and since I’ve tried to go about my business as well as I possibly can, representing the organization, playing as well as I can, trying to be a team player, and they felt a market adjustment was not only good for me, of course, but good for them, good for their business, because when you reward players when you don’t have to, that sends a message to the locker room that says, “If you do the right things and you put yourself on the line for this team, we’ll reward you, even if you’re under contract.”

Because in the NFL, it’s a one-sided contract. When the team is ready to get rid of you, they just cut you if you’re not playing up to your contract. If you’re outplaying your contract, your only possibility of getting your raise or a market value adjustment is to either make a huge stink, demand a trade or hold out. I told them that’s not the type of person I am. So I think they realized it’s the right thing to do, and it sends a good message going forward to the rest of the players in the locker room.

On whether the Browns can turn things around after the failed A.J. McCarron trade:

In the NFL, winning cures all, and when you lose, it makes everything worse, and it magnifies all the little things that go on in every building. But you only make a big deal about it when the losing is attached to it. For us, it’s just a matter of turning things around and start getting some W’s. I don’t think it’s necessarily any big issue or any different than any other NFL front office. It’s just a matter of getting those wins.

The Browns are doing right by Joe Thomas. The offensive tackle has been given a pay bump for the current year as well as next season, as detailed by ESPN.com’s Field Yates. 

Thomas has been given $3MM in new money between 2017 and 2018, including a $1.5MM roster bonus that was paid out to him earlier this week. The other $1.5MM comes from a pay raise for next year. With that extra cash for ’18, Thomas is slated to make $13.5MM, giving him the highest salary of any offensive lineman in the league next year.

The Browns didn’t necessarily have to give Thomas the pay bump since he is already signed through next year. It’s possible that the bonus is to help talk Thomas out of retirement – he said over the summer that he was thinking about hanging ’em up after this season. It could also just be a goodwill gesture towards for Cleveland’s longest-tenured player.

Remarkably, Thomas has made the Pro Bowl in all ten of his professional seasons. He won’t be going to the Pro Bowl this year, however, after a triceps injury shut him down after seven games. Up until that injury, Thomas had logged 10,363 straight snaps on the field.