For the first 2½ months of the season, Thomas Brown was the Bears’ passing-game coordinator — and their stand-in nickel cornerback. On the back fields at Halas Hall, he’d jump in with the scout team and guard wide 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 to his face that I can.”
Brown, 38, has come a long way in the last month. After nine games, he was promoted to offensive coordinator Nov. 12 when coach Matt Eberflus fired Shane Waldron. On Friday, he was named interim head coach when the Bears fired Eberflus.
They 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 the head coaching job.
He now faces a challenge — and an opportunity — never before seen from a team that had previously let its head coach finish every season since 1920. Brown, who was born 4½ months after the Bears’ only Super Bowl victory in 1986, is responsible for developing Williams, arguably the most important asset in team history.
Even with a clunker of a first half against the Lions on Thursday in which the Bears got just two first downs, Brown’s offense has been solid. In three games with Brown as his coordinator, Williams had a 99.2 passer rating. In his last three games under Waldron, his rating was 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 over the next five weeks, including a change in the simple task of calling plays. He had previously done that from the coaching box. Now he’ll have to do it on the field.
The Bears believe he’s organized enough and commands enough respect from the players that he’ll be able to juggle the 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. A 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.
Well-respected in NFL circles, he has achieved similar feats before. He interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Dolphins, Texans and Titans despite never spending a full season as a play-caller. Caught in a mess with the Panthers last season, Brown called plays for just eight games. He was nonetheless voted the No. 2 offensive coordinator in a survey by the NFL Players Association released in January.
Until Brown was named offensive coordinator, Williams didn’t have much direct interaction with him. To control the flow of information to their rookie quarterback, the Bears had preferred that Waldron run the meetings and that quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph work with Williams 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 Brown’s “aura.”
“I know it’s a compliment — I know my kids use it,” Brown said.
Kmet liked his direct approach.
“Thomas brings just a different type of intensity, naturally, with who he is,” Kmet said.
But it wasn’t always that way. Brown was admittedly an introvert growing up in Tucker, Georgia. He became a standout running back at Georgia, rushing for 2,646 yards and 23 touchdowns. The Falcons drafted him in the sixth round in 2008. In the final preseason game of his rookie year, he was hit with a horse-collar tackle that ripped his groin off the bone.
By 2010, he was out of the NFL. He began coaching at the college level, becoming the running backs coach for Melvin Gordon at Wisconsin and Nick Chubb and Sony Michel 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 wide 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, he said, he was a my-way-or-the-highway coach. Having three sons changed that. They live in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area with Brown’s wife, Jessica.
“It’s about still being my authentic self, but also how to deliver a message,” Brown 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 has 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 named Brown assistant head coach in 2021-22, remains one of his biggest supporters.
“He’s always been a guy that had incredible command,” McVay told reporters Friday. “He’s been a great competitor. He kind of 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.”