Funny, but I thought the exact same thing............For the youngsters, like you said, it definitely was not meant as a joke. It was a shot at Kelly.........But, Thurm was not stupid enough to think that Kelly was the weak link on the team. He was pissed off that Kelly had just thrown Howard Ballard under the bus. Not in the locker room, but to the press, Kelly called out Ballard for blowing an assignment, getting Kelly sacked (and I think hurt).........To some players, like Thurm, that was low - mainly because Ballard was a rookie.