‘Incredibly bright’: Brown begins journey as Bears’ interim head coach

Thomas Brown had not seen his wife and three boys in a month and a half. He learned late Friday morning he would be taking over as Bears interim head coach. First, he thought of his wife and kids, who still live in the Charlotte, N.C. area.

“My first question was, ‘Do I have any obligations this weekend?’” Brown said Monday at Halas Hall.

Brown had a 4 p.m. flight booked to see his family. Team president Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles told Brown to go enjoy Thanksgiving weekend with his family, but the work would begin first thing Monday morning.

“(I) tried to relax as much as I could, which you could obviously guess there were some thoughts going through my brain,” Brown said.

Brown became the 18th head coach in the history of the 105-year-old franchise. He will be the interim head coach for the final five weeks of the 2024 season.

Just a few short weeks ago, his title was passing game coordinator and he was two rungs below head coach. Recently fired head coach Matt Eberflus promoted Brown to offensive coordinator after firing Shane Waldron on Nov. 12.

Now, Brown is taking over Eberflus’ office. It’s a remarkable rise for a coach who many fans probably never had heard of in early November.

“Thomas is incredibly bright,” Warren said. “He’s hardworking. He’s grown up around the game. He’s talented. He has great leadership capabilities. He’s decisive and he’s clear. And I’m excited to watch him lead our football team.”

Brown served as offensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers in 2023. It was a short-lived journey because the Panthers moved on from the coaching staff after one season.

He was with Rams head coach Sean McVay from 2020-22, serving as McVay’s assistant head coach for two of those three seasons. McVay and Brown actually played against each other as high school football players in Georgia. Brown coached in the college ranks for a decade before joining the Rams.

Now, he’s the new voice in the room for the Bears. Warren made it clear the search for the new Bears head coach will be exhaustive. They will interview candidates from all over the football world.

But there’s also a chance the best man for the job is sitting under their noses.

“As far as the future goes and that process, that’s not under my control,” Brown said Monday. “So I do my best to avoid or worry about stuff that I can’t control.”

Even before this week, Brown’s name had been popping up on head coaching candidate lists across the NFL. Brown interviewed for the Titans’ head coach position last winter. He’s a former NFL player himself, which former players respect.

“I’m sure for some guys you can see the lens through a different set of eyes when you’re talking to somebody that played at the highest level as well,” Bears left tackle Braxton Jones said after Brown took over as offensive coordinator last month. “So for me, I respect any (coach), but some guys might say it changes when they played ball in the NFL.”

Brown is a 38-year-old Black man in a league with a majority of Black players. His life experiences will resonate with players in the room. He talks like a coach who’s not afraid to hold players accountable. Brown held a team meeting Monday morning and laid out his vision for the final five weeks.

“I also talked about making the three abilities,” Brown said. “That’s coach-ability, that’s accountability, that’s dependability. That’s all of us, myself included. I’m not above coaching.”

Brown made sure to note he’s just as responsible for the Thanksgiving debacle in Detroit as anyone else on the coaching staff.

A year ago, when the Las Vegas Raiders decided to keep interim head coach Antonio Pierce (another Black former NFL player) permanently, it was largely because the players backed him. The players certainly won’t have final say, but if the Bears play well during the final five games, and if they embody Brown’s energy on the field, there’s a chance Brown could stick around full-time. Regardless, he’s almost certain to get head coaching interviews across the league if these five games go well.

Warren and Poles will have a lot on their minds in the coming weeks, including what’s on the minds of the players.

“It’s important always to have a pulse of the locker room and an understanding of what’s going on, because the one thing that I can say is our players, our team, played extremely hard through adverse situations,” Poles said. “You don’t want a situation where that starts to crack and you don’t see the same effort and the same energy.”

Poles isn’t going to stop listening to the pulse of the locker room. That might lead him back to Brown, or it might not, but he’s going to be listening either way.