A week after backing Shane Waldron as his offensive coordinator, Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus pushed him out the door in a measure to save his own job, save the season and — most significantly to the franchise — prevent things from going terribly awry with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.
Thomas Brown was promoted into the coordinator role after serving as the passing game coordinator, a year after the Carolina Panthers twice turned to Brown as their interim offensive coordinator to help 2023 No. 1 pick Bryce Young while that team’s season spun out of control.
“I always say it’s a week-to-week league and it’s important you make good decisions based on where you want the team to go,” said Eberflus, who has a 14-29 record midway through his third season. “And we needed to go forward and upward.”
The Bears (4-5) have lost three consecutive games, scoring only 27 points in that span, and have gone two straight games without a touchdown. They rank 30th in total offense, 24th in rushing, 30th in passing, 32nd in sacks per pass attempt, 31st on third down and 24th in scoring.
Despite a wealth of skill-position talent, the offense has been bad across the board, and it’s worth wondering if Eberflus regrets not making the move sooner. The real mistake, though, was hiring Waldron in the first place to replace Luke Getsy in January. Waldron was one of nine known candidates to interview for the job, including Brown.
Brown, 38, becomes the Bears’ 14th offensive coordinator in the last 26 seasons, and only two have lasted more than two seasons in that span: John Shoop (2001-03) and Ron Turner (2005-09). It’s easy to say Brown has the most difficult starting position of any.
The Bears already have had their bye week, so it’s not like Brown can find any downtime to get organized. They still have to play all three NFC North rivals twice each, beginning with the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at Soldier Field, and the only remaining opponent currently under .500 is the Seattle Seahawks, who are 4-5 and come to Soldier Field on Dec. 26.
“That was the best decision that we have right here in the building,” Eberflus said. “Because you can’t make that big of a shift in the course of midseason. We’re still running our same type of verbiage, the words. The creativity and the knowledge that Thomas has, working with Sean (McVay) and the people he’s worked with, I think is very beneficial.”
If nothing else, the Bears were upbeat Wednesday after a walk-through and before practice. That can be a fleeting emotion in a locker room during losing streaks.
- “We have taken a step back versus forward, obviously, since training camp, OTAs, through the beginning weeks of the season,” wide receiver Keenan Allen said. “We went backward as an offense. This is about resetting, getting back on track and getting back to the things we’re good at. Better sooner than later. We have to make some things happen. If it wasn’t happening then? Insanity, man, we all know that definition.”
- “It’s only been half a day so far, but he commands the room,” offensive lineman Larry Borom said of Brown. “Being able to have the room locked in with you is definitely important.”
- “It’s been, ‘Hey, man, this is what we’re going to do and we’re not going to be shy about it. We’re not going to hold back from anything,’” backup quarterback Tyson Bagent said. “I like it. TB is very open and honest about everything that we’ve done good, we’ve done bad and everything in between. Very direct. That’s how it’s got to be. Not having any secrets. Doing everything with a lot of detail, a lot of discipline, in order to flip this thing around. The easiest way to flip it around is to get a win.”
Perhaps the biggest obstacle Waldron faced was an inability to command the room, and when a coach can’t do that, he can’t sell the plan and vision. That makes it difficult to get buy-in and impossible to get it when things begin to unravel.
The other thing players have talked about consistently is the details — or a lack thereof — in what has gone on. That’s a lot to fix on the fly, even for an experienced play caller.
“When it comes to where we are in the season, you can’t reinvent the wheel,” Brown said. “I’m not going to try and do that at all. That would be setting us in a spiral going backward.
“But it’s about being able to try and find the best way to be effective with our playmakers. To be able to mirror what we do with our formation and motion standpoint. Everything for me starts up front, starts with the run game, how we attack, (a) knock-it-forward mentality, and we will build off that.”
That has to be music to the ears of the offensive linemen and Williams, who has been sacked a league-high 38 times, 15 in the last two weeks. Tackles Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright, who missed Sunday’s 19-3 loss to the New England Patriots with knee injuries, returned to practice Wednesday with the hope of playing against the Packers.
Getting healthy in front of Williams is a necessary step, but so much has been off — pretty much everything has been disjointed — that this appears to be an overwhelming project with the season on the verge of slipping away. And that would lead, at minimum, to sweeping coaching changes.
“I don’t know what’s a quick fix and I’m not really looking into quick fixes,” Brown said. “I want long-term solutions to get us going in the right direction. The goal again is to have success and have success immediately. I’m not doing anything to be a loser or have a loser’s mentality. My players don’t either. Those guys are focused, they’re excited.”
It has to start with attempting to stabilize Williams, the prized No. 1 pick. Since an encouraging three-game stretch with wins over the Los Angeles Rams, Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars, Williams’ play has fallen apart. He has completed 48 of 95 passes (50.5%) during the losing streak for 468 yards (4.9 per attempt) with the 18 sacks.
The only positive is he hasn’t thrown an interception during the skid, but it’s worth wondering if he has been so inaccurate because he doesn’t trust himself not to become a turnover machine.
“I think we’ll do a good job of marrying everything up together, making everything look the same,” Williams said Wednesday. “And then from there, you’ll get a few easier passes, a few extra layups. I think it’ll help us in the run game.”
Brown said there are no correlations to his situation working with Young last season. Different players. Different organizations. For it to be different in a way that is impactful, whatever the Bears do with Williams has to click because Young was terrible last season and again to begin 2024, eventually getting benched.
“I’m not going to go into detail about what we talked about individually,” Brown said of his meeting with Williams. “It was all a positive conversation. He was receptive to it. Talked about what he can fix and be better for our offense.
“Clearly, obviously, quarterback’s the most difficult position, so we’ve got to be better all around him. But it also starts with how we coach it, being more detailed, being more demanding with not just him, but also with the entire staff as well.”
Sources familiar with Brown’s play-calling stints in Carolina last year believe he will implement more motion, particularly jet, and will look to get Williams on the move more, providing him with more half-field reads. Brown also had a propensity to call more go routes with the Panthers.
One key, of course, will be mixing it up as future opponents will get a book on Brown after about two games.
“The good ones, they find different places to go with the ball,” one coach said. “So you can get about a two-game bump with a new play caller, but then teams will have a game plan for him.”
As music played in the locker room and cornerback Jaylon Johnson was pulling compression sleeves on his legs, he was asked if the change and renewed energy gave him confidence the offense can pull out of a tailspin.
“I don’t do all of the pre-notions and feelings and all that,” Johnson said. “I believe in Sunday. We’ll see what happens this Sunday and the Sundays to come.”
