Bear Digest

How Thomas Brown Sees Bears Pulling It All Back Together

Splintering has occurred within the Bears' locker room, admits interim coach Thomas Brown, but he comes in with an approach designed to correct such situations.
Gene Chamberlain|
Thomas Brown plans to call plays on the sidelines now but doesn't think it will affect his decisions during games.
Thomas Brown plans to call plays on the sidelines now but doesn't think it will affect his decisions during games. | Photo: Chicago Bears Video

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Chicago Bears

It's hardly a perfect situation awaiting Bears interim coach Thomas Brown as he takes over the team from Matt Eberflus.

He sought to settle the nuts and bolts first Monday, confirming he will call plays on the sidelines now after doing it in the press box, and defensive coordinator Eric Washington will be the defensive play caller. Wide receivers coach Chris Beatty has been elevated to interim offensive coordinator, although he will not call plays.

There's also the little matter of the disastrous finish at Detroit, when time was allowed to expire without using a timeout, and its aftermath in the locker room. There is an expected splintering within the locker room when any team goes on a losing streak after high expectations, and especially when it occurs in such a dramatic way as it has for the Bears—loss by Hail Mary, blocked kick, overtime and then letting time run out with a timeout in your pocket.


In short, Brown has a mess to clean up.

"Like I told the offense this morning, there's a lot of dialogue about those last couple plays, those last seconds," Brown said Monday at his first press conference. "But I focus more on the events leading up to that.

"There were opportunities before that moment to end the game, to finish the game. So, yes, it's important for us to execute when it's time for those moments, but don't neglect the fact that we had several opportunities throughout the entire game.
We dug ourselves into a hole in the first half by going down 16 to zip, battled back into that game, started that drive inside the minus-1 yard line, I think 3:31 left on the clock. We had several opportunities before that to go execute. I'm not going to get into the weeds of what was communicated, not communicated, because that’s irrelevant and over with now. But definitely had an opportunity to learn from it and don’t remove myself from accountability in those scenarios."

Brown thinks he knows how splintering occurs and addressed it with players.

"Well, I think naturally what happens is when you don't have success there's division because there's outside noise," Brown said. "I mentioned this in the team meeting room but also the quarterback room of the importance of controlling the thoughts and having self-talk. Because it’s easy for doubt to seep in.

"There's tons of negativity outside of these walls, which is why I tell them all the time I don’t even see or hear anything that happens on purpose."

Brown is seeking to improve communication with players but only to an extent.

"I kind of made the association this morning about being in my house, and I have some phenomenal neighbors around me that have no idea what happens at my house because it's not their business," Brown said. "So we're in this thing together, we communicate together. I want those guys to understand they always have a doorway and a pathway to come communicate with me.

"I will not just do whatever they ask me to do. That's not how it works. But every thought process is about being able to understand how to resolve problems, how to make people and the situation better so we can get a better result."

Brown's ultimate goal will be to convince GM Ryan Poles and team president Kevin Warren he can be the head coach, but said he's going to worry about succeeding on the field first and let everything else take care of itself.

"As far as the future goes and that process, that's not under my control," he said. "So I do my best to avoid or worry about stuff that I can't control. That's a waste of my time. I can control my approach every single day."

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Decisiveness will be his key to avoiding messes like the end of the last Bears game with Detroit.

"And basically with decisiveness, I was raised by decisive decision makers," he said. "My mother and my father were decisive. My older sister Nicole was very decisive. I've been married for 16 years to a wife who is very decisive.

"And so I surround myself with decisive people and I believe in just the process of how you go about things and how you communicate and how you execute things when it's time to go execute."

This would be a change with the 2024 Bears.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.