BEREA, Ohio -- Joe Thomas is not finished, mind you.

He may have a few thousand more snaps in his Hall of Fame body.

But if he lasts just four plays in Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens (note: jinxes begone), he'll hit a consecutive snaps milestone that the Cleveland Browns say is unprecedented.

Thomas' fourth snap will be his 10,000th straight play on offense. The standout Browns left tackle has not missed a play since he was the third overall pick in the 2007 draft. Through losing and quarterback changes and more losing and more quarterback changes, Thomas has been the Browns' Gibraltar -- immense, solid and always there.

"I will now hold my breath 10,000 times," his wife, Annie, said this week.

In its essence, what Thomas has done is show up every day for work. Through sore throats, bad days, bad knees, headaches, not feeling well or not feeling into it, Thomas has come to work and done his job and done it well. He is recognized and respected, as Cal Ripken Jr. was when he set baseball's consecutive-games streak: Thomas works every day, and he works at a high level. As he said Thursday: "I guess I'm just a guy that tries to show up and do his job every day."

"It's still insane to me that after all of these years he's never missed a snap," Annie Thomas said. "It's just a testament to the man he is: reliable, dedicated, and mentally and physically tough."

She puts it as well as anyone, probably because she knows him as well as anyone. But this week a variety of other people who know Thomas spoke about his career, which has seen him go to the Pro Bowl in each of his first 10 seasons while playing for a team that has had one winning season and gone 48-113 since he was drafted. Teammates, former teammates, coaches, former coaches … all used the same superlatives. But when some of the greats of the game heard of the upcoming 10,000th snap, they were stopped cold.

"Damn," Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said. "That is legit. That is pretty amazing, especially in this league. It is a physical league for his position. That is a pretty awesome milestone, accomplishment."

"At tackle ... that is unbelievable," New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees said.

"It's incredible," New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said. "For him to do it, he's obviously had a lot of regimes and he's been such a remarkable player. A consistent elite performer. He's been to so many Pro Bowls, came out really highly touted, and he's just played at a Pro Bowl level almost every single year. That's a tough position to play all those snaps. But he does it. It's really a credit to him."

One man provided the exception to the thinking: Arizona Cardinals tight ends coach Steve Heiden, who was a teammate of Thomas when he was a rookie.

"It doesn't surprise me at all; I think he was probably the most prepared player I've seen come in as a rookie," Heiden said.

LeCharles Bentley, the former Browns and Saints center, called Thomas "a football unicorn." (Rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer, the Browns' starter, used the same word.)

Bentley knows offensive linemen. He runs an academy in Phoenix where he scouts and trains and develops them. At one point Bentley was headed toward being Thomas' teammate, but he ruptured his patella tendon on the first day of training camp in 2006. The injury showed the vagaries of NFL life, and what Thomas has avoided.

Bentley said there's nobody like Thomas and it's unfair to compare him to other tackles because Thomas does things no other tackle can do. He's not the biggest or the strongest or the fastest, but he might be the smartest and wisest. He plays angles and tendencies, using preparation and smarts along with athletic ability.

Thomas talked a few years ago about always knowing the opposing player's signature move. He said at a key point in the game, the opponent will go to that move, and if Thomas is prepared he can stop it. Against Dwight Freeney, Thomas always knew the spin move would arise on a key play.

Last season against San Diego, Thomas faced rookie Joey Bosa, who was a bit of a sensation. Bosa likes to drive upfield and then reverse to get the tackle off balance. When he tried it against Thomas, the veteran was waiting for Bosa like it was a receiving line.

"Joe has reached an all-time level of amazing that's yet to be identified," Bentley said.

"I guess I'm just a guy that tries to show up and do his job every day." Joe Thomas on his longevity in the NFL

When Trent Dilfer played quarterback for the Browns in 2005, he was preparing to face Brett Favre in Green Bay. Dilfer was asked about Favre's consecutive-games streak, which ended at 297. Dilfer called it the greatest achievement in pro sports.

Told this week about Thomas' streak, he said there might be another "greatest" -- though out of fairness to both players, he would not pick one over the other.

"I'm very rarely at a loss for words, as you know," Dilfer said. "But I'm at a loss for words."

Dilfer said the first challenge for Thomas was being good enough to start as a rookie. The second was starting immediately at left tackle, one of the most important positions on a team.

"It's not like you're starting at receiver, where you just run a couple routes and run fast," Dilfer said. "You gotta be a graduate student and a great athlete to start at left tackle from day one."

After Bentley was injured, the Browns acquired Hank Fraley. He wound up being Thomas' teammate from 2007-09 and remains in touch with Thomas today.

"I've got four boys myself, and a daughter," Fraley said. "Hopefully my boys and my daughter look up to me and I will be their role model. But they're like, 'Dad, I really like this Joe Thomas guy.'

"I can't fault them."

Fraley now is the offensive line coach at UCLA, where he makes a point to talk to his players about Thomas.

"I'm not sure who coached him at Wisconsin, but he came in and took notes every day, and he still does it," Fraley said. "He's so detailed. He has a plan of attack. I was taught how to take notes when I got to the pros by guys like Dermontti Dawson, Jon Runyan, players like that. To see Joe Thomas come in as a rookie already doing it, it's hard to fathom sometimes.

"When I teach these guys, I tell them, 'Hey, this guy is considered one of the best left tackles ever in the game. And look what he does.'"

Dallas Cowboys tackle Travis Frederick, a three-time Pro Bowler, was once one of those young guys growing up in Wisconsin.

"We didn't play together, but in high school when I was first trying to decide what I was going to do and went and told my head coach that I wanted to play Division I football, he looked up some of Joe's stuff and said, 'This is a guy you want to look at,'" Frederick said. "He was a multisport athlete in high school, smart guy, top of his class, and then went to Wisconsin and he was successful there.

"So I started watching him at that point and just tried to follow that. Actually, that's why I wore 72 in high school. He wore 72 at Wisconsin and wears 73 now. That's why I wore 72 through high school and in college, and now I've continued to keep it."

Kizer said he used Thomas' notebook this week as he prepares for the Ravens. Kizer has started keeping a notebook of his own, but he referred to Thomas' for Baltimore's tendencies and defenses. Thomas has kept notes meticulously throughout his career.

"I'm blown away by the physical toughness and the mental toughness, because he's never been in a winning situation," said quarterback Josh McCown, a teammate in 2015 and '16. "When you get to spend time with him, and when you see him, you step back and go, 'Man, he's been in some tough seasons and he's kept this kind of attitude. Are you kidding me?' It's unbelievable.

"He's one of my favorite guys I've ever played with because of his character and the kind of guy he is. It's awesome. The guys I played with who were sitting in that room are better because of him."

"He's just a really warm, lighthearted guy who has a lot of energy, who takes his job very seriously," said Falcons center Alex Mack, another good friend of Thomas whose career started in Cleveland.

Thomas never seems down. He loves practical jokes, and his Twitter account this summer became something of a sensation. For years, the Thomases held a Halloween party at their home, and his costumes were legendary. His favorite: When he and Annie both dressed as a version of cousin Eddie from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," his attire came with slicked-back hair, white pants and white shoes.

He has been an NFL finalist for the Walter Payton Award, and he hosts a show on the team's official website, clevelandbrowns.com, called "The Joe Thomas Hour: The Best Two Minutes of Your Life." In that "hour," Thomas conducts quirky interviews, and any question can be asked.

"He was always good at the ugly sweater parties, too," Fraley said.

People who know him say Thomas' demeanor rarely changes. He's intensely proud of being a father to his three children. At home, he has a 900-square-foot vegetable garden -- he loves the Cajun bell pepper -- and trudges through the dirt in a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Thomas also was one of the more impressive performers in a Word of the Day contest the offensive line used to have when the line included Mack and Mitchell Schwartz.

Schwartz, now with the Kansas City Chiefs, came up with the idea to have one lineman each day present the group with a new word during warm-ups. The linemen then had to define it and use it in a sentence.

"After practice we'd write the word on the board in the meeting room, and by the end of the year you'd have a whiteboard full of interesting words," Schwartz said.

"Joe's a big wordsmith."

In 2015, Thomas revealed that he has played through three torn MCLs and two high ankle sprains. One of the knee injuries would have sidelined him, but it happened in the 2012 season finale, so Thomas just played through it.

"One game he just suddenly had an elbow brace on," Fraley said. "I asked him, 'What did you do?' He just said, 'Aww, I'll be fine.'"

"I know there's been times he's been rolled up, piles fall on his legs and stuff," said Hall of Fame offensive lineman Bruce Matthews, who started 293 games in a 19-year career. "To avoid that, it's not anything that he's done. He's just been blessed with a great body that can take the punishment."

Pro Football Focus named Thomas the best left tackle on the field in Week 1 this season. The past four years, the analytics site has listed Thomas sixth, first, second and first among the league's tackles.

He has lined up to protect 19 starting quarterbacks and has been to the Pro Bowl in each of his first 10 seasons -- something only Hall of Famers Merlin Olsen (14), Mel Renfro (10), Barry Sanders (10) and Lawrence Taylor (10) have done before him.

The number the Browns use for Thomas' total snaps comes from the Browns' game books that are submitted to -- and verified by -- the league. Some sites and analytics pages have quibbled that Thomas was off the field for some fake punts, but the league considers those plays special-teams plays, not offensive ones.

According to the Browns, Thomas is at 9,996, on the cusp of 10,000.

"He doesn't take any of those 10,000 for granted," Annie Thomas said.

ESPN NFL Nation reporters Jamison Hensley, Mike Reiss, Josh Weinfuss, Todd Archer, Mike Wells, Jeremy Fowler, Courtney Cronin, Rich Cimini, Vaughn McClure, Adam Teicher, Mike Triplett, Alden Gonzalez and Jeff Legwold contributed to this report.