Daniel Thomas is a career special-teams ace who has carved out six-plus NFL seasons as a reliable safety depth piece.
Daniel Thomas has built his NFL career on special teams as much as defense, logging over 1,400 career special-teams snaps since Jacksonville drafted him in 2020. He now brings that experience to the Browns' secondary depth.
Path to the league
Thomas played four seasons at Auburn from 2016 to 2019, appearing in 51 games with 28 starts and totaling 199 tackles, five interceptions and 13 passes defensed. Jacksonville selected him in the fifth round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
Career highlights
Thomas spent his first five seasons with the Jaguars from 2020 to 2024, building a reputation as one of the league's more dependable special-teams contributors, showing up on as many as 480 of 526 special-teams snaps in a single season. He signed with the Detroit Lions for the 2025 season before joining the Browns in the 2026 offseason.
2025 season recap
Thomas appeared in 12 games for the Lions in 2025, recording 23 tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass deflection, continuing his role as a core special-teams player with occasional defensive snaps.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Daniel Thomas (safety)
- ESPN: Daniel Thomas player page
Statistics
2025 season and career2025 Season · Defense
12 games played▶Defense · career
| Year | Team | GP | TOT | SOLO | SACK | INT | FF | FR | PD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | lions | 12 | 23 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | jaguars | 15 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023 | jaguars | 15 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | jaguars | 15 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | jaguars | 16 | 27 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | jaguars | 10 | 18 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Player Profile
Background
- Position
- Safety
- Group
- defense
- College
- Auburn
- Hometown
- Montgomery, AL, USA
- Age
- 28
- Status
- active
