Bears' 1st-and-10: If Thomas Brown has 'it,' would the Bears know it?

Is Thomas Brown a legitimate candidate to become the Bears’ next head coach?

Any time a coach draws comparisons to Mike Tomlin, you have to pay attention. But you also have to be careful with notions like this in Chicago, where the bar is so low for offensive coaches that anyone who has any kind of success shines a little brighter than he does anywhere else.

In 1999, first-year offensive coordinator Gary Crowton’s screen-heavy passing offense mesmerized Bears fans so much, it didn’t matter that the Bears were 25th in scoring despite a jump from 21st to eighth in total yards. In the eyes of some observers — or at least one — the Bears couldn’t let Crowton get away, even if they had to promote him to head coach and kick Dick Jauron to the curb.

But 13 games into the 2000 season, Crowton was gone. With his offense fizzling — averaging just 13 points a game, 28th in the NFL — Crowton left with three games to go to become the head coach at BYU. And Bears fans, probably many of the same ones who feared losing him a few months earlier, couldn’t wait to see him go.

That’s the way it is here. In 2015, Adam Gase parlayed one year as the Bears’ offensive coordinator into the Dolphins’ head-coaching job after quarterback Jay Cutler had a career-best 92.3 passer rating. Never mind that Gase’s offense was 25th in scoring (the same as the previous season). Or that Cutler’s passer rating was still only 16th.

In 2022, when Luke Getsy’s offense scored 29 or more points in four consecutive games, fans again wondered how long the Bears would be able to keep Getsy as reporters asked coach Matt Eberflus about Getsy’s head-coaching potential. But after the Bears averaged 14.2 points over their final six games, the excitement turned to doubt. A year later, after quarterback
Justin Fields and the offense stagnated, Getsy was fired.

Brown is next in line, and he already has impressive credentials. In two games as coordinator, he has breathed life into the offense and turned Caleb Williams back into the franchise quarterback prospect he’s expected to be. And he hasn’t done it against the Panthers and Jaguars but against two of the better defenses in the NFL, the Packers (10th in scoring, 12th in yards) and the Vikings (fourth in scoring, 10th in yards).

But it’s the respect he commands from players that makes Brown an intriguing coaching prospect. The advantage of not being Shane Waldron is a great start. But beyond that, Bears players have a belief in Brown that they didn’t have in Waldron.

And maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Brown does have a Tomlin-like presence — a no-nonsense, confident, forthright approach that exudes leadership.

Whether Brown actually has that quality remains to be seen. The catch is there’s no one at Halas Hall who has shown the intuition to identify that “it” factor.

On the contrary, general manager Ryan Poles reportedly talked to Dan Quinn and Jim Caldwell in 2022, then hired Eberflus less than 48 hours after he himself was hired. Eberflus reportedly interviewed two candidates for offensive coordinator and quickly hired Getsy.

When Getsy was fired, Eberflus and Poles interviewed Kliff Kingsbury, Klint Kubiak, Zac Robinson and Brown, among others, and hired Waldron. Knowing he was going to have a rookie quarterback in 2024, Poles declined the opportunity to hire an offensive coach and resolutely doubled down on Eberflus.

So the question the Bears are expected to soon face yet again isn’t just, “Can they get the right guy?” It’s whether they’ll even know him when they see him.

Over and over again

2. This is an age-old problem at Halas Hall that starts at the very top. In 2012, the Bears hired Phil Emery as GM over Jason Licht, now the Super Bowl-winning GM of the Buccaneers. The Bears and Chiefs both fired their head coach at the end of that season. The Chiefs hired Andy Reid four days later. Emery took 16 days to hire Marc Trestman — over Bruce Arians, who became the Super Bowl-winning coach of the Buccaneers. He was hired by . . . Jason Licht.

And again

3. Here’s how one thing leads to another when a team is heading down the drain.

Eberflus on why he challenged Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison’s 69-yard catch that ended up costing him a timeout: “I threw the challenge flag because it was an explosive [play].”

Williams on the Bears’ confusion on fourth-and-four from the Vikings’ 27 on the ensuing possession: “You obviously aren’t going to use another timeout because you know the game is going to be close at the end. We already used one.”

Just not ready

4. The confusion on the fourth-and-four play — Williams rushed to beat the play clock and threw an incomplete pass to Keenan Allen — is Exhibit A in the case against Eberflus, not just because of the obvious lack of preparedness in a critical moment but because it’s the second time Eberflus has been overtly caught unprepared.

It also happened in Week 3 against the Colts, when the Bears had to call timeout to set up a two-point conversion in an obvious two-point conversion situation, down 14-9 after Williams’ one-yard pass to Rome Odunze with 8:21 left in the fourth quarter.

Bad technique?

5. That, unfortunately, is one of many errors that have been repeated in Eberflus’ third season as coach. Earlier in the Vikings game, the Bears were embarrassed by a blocked field goal for a second consecutive week.

And perhaps the biggest indictment of Eberflus is his repeated use of “technique” and “details” as the reasons for execution failures, including Monday, when he addressed the blocked field goal and the defense’s regression in the last month. It’s all Eberflus has at this point. But to acknowledge such fundamental, foundational issues in Week 12 of Year 3 is self-incriminating.

Complete streak

6. Williams hasn’t thrown an interception in five consecutive starts. Only Jim McMahon (seven starts in 1984) and Kyle Orton (six in 2008) have had longer streaks.

Williams’ stretch of 193 passes without an interception is the longest since Brian Hoyer didn’t throw an interception in 200 passes in his only six games (five starts) with the Bears in 2016.

Orton holds the franchise record with 205 consecutive passes without an interception in 2008.

Line continuity

7. The offensive line of Braxton Jones, Teven Jenkins, Coleman Shelton, Matt Pryor and Darnell Wright played all 76 snaps against the Vikings, only the third time in 11 games the Bears’ line has done that.

This line, in fact, has undergone 16 in-game changes this season. The 10-1 Lions, on the other hand, made their first in-game lineup change of the season Sunday, when left tackle Taylor Decker missed 14 plays with knee and ankle injuries but returned and finished the game against the Colts.

Continuity makes a difference. The Lions’ starting offensive line of Decker, Graham Glasgow, Frank Ragnow, Kevin Zeitler and Penei Sewell has played 92.1% of the offensive snaps this season. The Bears’ most frequent lineup has played 83.8% of the offensive snaps.

Not on target

8. The Bears’ Cairo Santos is the first kicker to be blocked on back-to-back field-goal attempts of less than 50 yards since the Browns’ Travis Coons in 2015 (47 and 42 yards). Santos also is the last Chiefs kicker with a blocked kick of less than 50 yards — a 27-yarder that Pernell McPhee blocked in an 18-17 loss to the Bears in 2017 at Arrowhead Stadium.

On target

9. Josh McCown Ex-Bears Player of the Week: Panthers place-kicker Eddy Pineiro was 4-for-4 on field-goal attempts in a 30-27 loss to the Chiefs on Sunday. Pineiro has hit 16 of 17 field goals this season (94.1%). His only miss was a 45-yarder against the Bears.

Pineiro is the NFL’s all-time career percentage leader (89.7%, 105-for-117) and has made 91 of his last 98 attempts (92.9%), including his last 11 with the Bears in 2019.

Six to go

10. Bear-ometer — 5-12: at Lions (L); at 49ers (L); at Vikings (L); vs. Lions (L); vs. Seahawks (W); at Packers (L).