For the first two-and-a-half months of the season, Thomas Brown was the Bears’ pass-game coordinator — and stand-in nickel cornerback. On the backfields of Halas Hall, he’d jump in with the scout team and guard receiver Keenan Allen.
“I’m still kind of cocky in some ways,” Brown said Tuesday. “And obviously I can’t guard him — even though I’ve told him that to his face that I can.”
The 38-year-old Brown has come a long way in the last month. After nine games, Brown was promoted to offensive coordinator Nov. 12 when coach Matt Eberflus fired play-caller Shane Waldron. Friday, he was named interim head coach when Eberflus himself was fired.
The Bears wouldn’t have promoted Brown — and risked damaging the forward momentum of No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams — unless they considered him a real candidate for their head coaching job.
He now faces a challenge — and an opportunity — never seen inside a franchise that let its head coach finish every season since 1920.
Brown, who was born four-and-a-half months after the Bears’ last Super Bowl win, is responsible for developing Williams, who is the most important asset in team history. It’s fair to question why the Bears would risk changing the one thing on their roster that had been working. Even with a clunker of a first half against the Lions — the Bears had two first downs — Brown’s offense has been solid. In his three games under Brown, Williams has posted a 99.2 passer rating; in his last three under Waldron, he had a 64.7.
“Thomas was a good scout team nickel,” tight end Cole Kmet said Wednesday, “but I’ve been liking him at coordinator recently.”
How about as head coach? More will be asked of Brown during the week and on game day the next five weeks. Then there’s the simple task of calling plays — with the Bears, he did so from the coaching box. Now he’ll have to do so on the field.
Nonetheless, the Bears thought Brown was the best candidate to be their interim. They believe he’s organized enough and commands enough respect from the players that he’ll be able to juggle his massive responsibilities — at least in the short term.
As for the long term: Consider Brown’s tenure a tryout, even if all involved know his situation is less-than-ideal. The man the Bears passed over as coordinator in January — only to bring him in to help Waldron — has five games to win over a roster of 90 players. And his bosses.
He’s done something similar before. Brown is respected enough in NFL circles that he’s interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Dolphins, Texans and Titans despite not ever spending a full season as the play-caller. Caught in a mess in Carolina last season, Brown called plays for eight just Panthers games. He was nonetheless voted the No. 2 offensive coordinator in a NFLPA survey released in January.
Williams didn’t have much direct interaction with Brown until he was named offensive coordinator. To control the flow of information to their rookie quarterback, they preferred Waldron run the meetings and quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph to work with him on fundamentals. Brown fed his ideas through Waldron.
“I think he’s done a great job understanding me,” Williams said Tuesday, “even though we haven’t had many talks in the past.”
When they first started working together, Williams was struck by what he called Brown’s aura — “I know it’s compliment, I know my kids use it,” Brown said — while Kmet liked his direct approach.
“Thomas brings just a different type of intensity, naturally, with who he is,” Kmet said.
It wasn’t always that way. Brown was an admitted introvert growing up in Tucker, Ga. He became a standout running back at Georgia, rushing for 2,646 yards and 23 touchdowns. His hometown Falcons drafted him in Round 6 in 2008. In the final preseason game of his rookie year, a horse-collar tackle ripped Brown’s groin off the bone.
By 2010, he was out of the NFL. He began coaching at the college level. He became Melvin Gordon’s running backs coach at Wisconsin and Nick Chubb and Sony Michel’s at Georgia.
“He used to be one of those ‘Melvin Gordon busts a long run, I’m gonna chase him down the field’ type of guys …” said Bears receivers coach Chris Beatty, who was on the same Wisconsin staff in 2014. “He doesn’t run up the sidelines as much as he used to.”
Brown, too, swears he’s less intense. When he was 24, Brown said, he was a my-way-or-the-highway coach. Having three boys changed that. They live in the Charlotte with Brown’s wife Jessica.
“It’s about still being my authentic self, but also how to deliver a message,” he said. “I’m never going to lie to you. I’m going to tell you the truth — but how I deliver it is based on what brings the best out of you.”
With Williams, Brown has focused on making sure his quarterback can forgive himself after bad days. He’s had plenty of practice — the Bears have lost six in a row.
“He plays a spot where everybody is going to be hard on him,” Brown said. “So you don’t have to continue to punch yourself in the face. You have to give yourself some grace and move on and get better.”
In 2016, Brown followed Georgia coach Mark Richt to Miami and became the Hurricanes’ offensive coordinator. He jumped from South Carolina to the NFL in 2020 when he was hired by Rams head coach Sean McVay, a former high school rival. McVay, who gave him the title of assistant head coach from 2021-22, remains one of his biggest supporters.
“He’s always been a guy that had incredible command,” McVay told Rams reporters Friday. “He’s been a great competitor. He kinda demands respect from the people he’s around just by the way he carries himself …
“In this profession you have such an appreciation for how challenging it is, how volatile. … There’s certain people, when you watch, you’re like, ‘Man, they’re a little different, in terms of the competitiveness, the spirit, the never-say-die attitude.”