LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Thomas Brown insists he’s focused on the job at hand and not the one he might have down the line.
His immediate task as the interim coach of the Chicago Bears is helping the team finish strong over the final five games, starting this weekend at San Francisco. The rest of his life can wait.
“I think about just the moment. … I obviously understand the role that I’m in, understand what might come with it,” he said Wednesday. “But I also understand that we make most situations bigger than what it has to be because of the outside noise, what everybody else puts a value on it.”
The Bears are in a moment unlike any other in the history of the founding NFL franchise.
They fired a head coach for the first time during a season when they let Matt Eberflus go on Friday with a 4-8 record and the team in a six-game losing streak marked by head-scratching decisions. They promoted Brown, who in a span of three weeks went from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator and now the person in charge.
The tipping point was a 23-20 loss at Detroit on Thanksgiving, when the Bears let the clock run down rather than call a timeout following a sack. It led to Caleb Williams throwing an incomplete pass from the Lions 41 as time expired when Chicago should have been able to run more than one play.
Star cornerback Jaylon Johnson interrupted Eberflus’ postgame speech and made his feelings clear. Other players had gone public in recent weeks with their frustrations over the coaching decisions, and they didn’t exactly hide their emotions following the Detroit game.
On Wednesday, defensive end DeMarcus Walker said he sensed a change was coming after the loss to the Lions.
“You guys just look at the whole turnaround, how everything had been going, we just knew some changes were going to be made,” he said.
The 38-year-old Brown now has a huge opportunity. He spent last season as Carolina’s offensive coordinator and the previous three on Sean McVay’s staff with the Los Angeles Rams - the final two as assistant head coach. Prior to that, he spent nine years as a college assistant, including stops at Wisconsin, Georgia, Miami and South Carolina.
It’s his job to help right a team that came into the season thinking a playoff spot was in reach.
Williams’ development obviously will be front and center. To that end, the No. 1 overall draft pick has looked more comfortable in the three games since Brown took over for the fired Shane Waldron as offensive coordinator, completing 75 of 117 passes for 827 yards with five touchdowns, no interceptions and a rating of 99.2. Though Brown will continue to call plays, the Bears have another new offensive coordinator in wide receivers coach Chris Beatty.
“I think it is a stepping stone actually with my development because I think down the line I’ll have different OCs or different head coaches or whatever the case may be,” Williams said. “And so being able to handle it my first year, handle a new playbook, handle all these different changes, handle all of this I think it definitely will help the development instead of hurting it or anything like that.”
Beyond the development of the prized quarterback, Brown also will be judged during his audition for the regular job on his preparation, decisions during games and command of the locker room. He said he reached out to each player individually on Friday and Saturday and tried to set a tone when the team met on Monday.
“I want them to be excellent,” Brown said. “I can nitpick at every single play and tell a guy how he wasn’t perfect. And, so, perfection’s not the goal. It’s to excel at your craft.”
Notes: The Bears had a lengthy injury report on Wednesday. WRs Keenan Allen (ankle) and DJ Moore (quad), RBs D’Andre Swift (quad) and Roschon Johnson (concussion), DB Elijah Hicks (ankle) and OL Ryan Bates (concussion) all missed practice. S Kevin Byard (shoulder) and OLs Darnnell Wright (knee) and Coleman Shelton (knee) were limited.
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