At the beginning of this year, the Chicago Bears hired Thomas Brown as their passing game coordinator. They never could’ve imagined he would go from that to interim head coach in the space of a few months. Or maybe they could. Reports suggested that GM Ryan Poles recruited the young assistant hard. He’d also preferred to fire Matt Eberflus after last season rather than persist another year. Did he always anticipate the possibility this could happen and chose to find some insurance? Who knows. One thing is clear. Brown already has plenty of fans inside the locker room.
His calm demeanor, evident self-confidence, accountability, and competitiveness are always on display. It is easy to see why many have called him a head coach-in-waiting. However, is that feeling shared in league circles? Courtney Cronin of ESPN alluded to this in a recent column.
“He’s the real deal,” one front office source said of Brown.
She wasn’t alone. Adam Hoge revealed on the Hoge & Jahns podcast that he’s been getting lots of texts from NFL people indicating they’re big fans of Brown. They almost seem to warn the Bears that if they don’t end up hiring the man as their next head coach, somebody else will.
It is understandable they’d be more intrigued by bringing in an outside candidate, somebody with a fresh perspective after three years of misery under Eberflus. That said, sometimes you could have the right guy already on the staff and not even know it. For example, the Bears’ 2006 team had Ron Rivera and Steve Wilks on it. Both became future head coaches. The 1963 championship team had George Allen on it. He went on to become one of the most successful coaches of the 1970s. The biggest mistake George Halas probably ever made was not retiring after 1965. Maybe Allen would’ve inherited the team instead of Jim Dooley.
Even terrible head coaches can luck into future stars. A perfect example is Bill Peterson. He was arguably the worst coach of the 1970s. Even so, he had a reputation for finding incredible assistants. Among them were Bill Parcells, Joe Gibbs, and Bobby Bowden. That is why the Bears would be wise not to judge Thomas Brown based on who hired him. Just because Eberflus was a bad head coach doesn’t mean he will be. This evaluation must be made in a vacuum.
