Is Thomas Brown the right man to fix Chicago Bears offense? New OC says there are no ‘quick fixes’

LAKE FOREST – Matt Eberflus still hadn’t made a decision by Monday night. The Chicago Bears head coach wouldn’t go into detail on his process when deciding whether to fire offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, but he was adamant that the decision to do so was his and his alone.

Eberflus met with general manager Ryan Poles, chairman George McCaskey and team president Kevin Warren on Monday. He said he meets with them every Monday after a game.

“I’ve always used those guys as counsel,” Eberflus said. “But [it was] my decision.”

When Eberflus met with the media Monday, he promised changes to the offense but provided few details. About 24 hours later, he made the decision to fire Waldron after only nine games. Eberflus promoted passing game coordinator Thomas Brown to offensive coordinator. Brown now will be tasked with leading the Bears offense.

Eberflus spoke with some team leaders before making his decision but he said the players weren’t specifically asking for a change at offensive coordinator. The discussions with players were more centered around disappointment surrounding the offensive results in recent weeks.

“Frustration, of course,” Eberflus said. “We’ve struggled for three weeks and hadn’t scored the way we wanted to, but certainly [there’s] frustration for sure.”

Receiver DJ Moore echoed that Wednesday at Halas Hall. Of course, the player knew the results weren’t there. The Bears haven’t scored a touchdown in two games, and quarterback Caleb Williams hasn’t thrown a touchdown since Oct. 13 in London.

Moore said the players were frustrated, but the news that Eberflus fired Waldron still came as a surprise Tuesday.

“That was shocking,” Moore said. “I don’t think anybody really asked for him to be gone. We expressed our frustration, but never to have somebody’s livelihood taken away.”

That was shocking. I don’t think anybody really asked for him to be gone.

—  DJ Moore, Bears receiver

But that’s the brutal reality of life in the NFL. Players’ jobs can be taken away in an instant – and the same is true of coaches. Waldron’s offense wasn’t getting it done.

Now, in steps Brown, who served as offensive coordinator in Carolina last year and interviewed for the Bears OC job in January but lost out to Waldron. Meeting with members of the media Wednesday, Brown said, “This will not be a one-man show.”

He emphasized that it’s going to take a group effort to fix the offensive issues.

“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.”

Eberflus said he’s looking for creativity in his offense. The hope is that Brown can bring some creativity to the play sheet. The players on the roster remain the same, and the coaching staff is largely the same, other than Waldron being dismissed. Wholesale changes aren’t going to happen overnight.

But the Bears do have a matchup against the hated rival Green Bay Packers on Sunday at Soldier Field. The Bears might need a little creativity if they’re going to beat the 6-3 Packers.

“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, in my opinion. 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, knock-it-forward mentality, and we will build off that.”

The players seem to like the energy that Brown brings. He’s a former NFL player himself, albeit briefly after a pretty successful college career at Georgia from 2004-07. The Falcons drafted Brown in 2008, and he played for Cleveland from 2009-10 before injuries derailed his playing career. He coached at the college level for a decade, then joined Sean McVay’s staff in Los Angeles from 2020-22.

The key to making this work will be the quarterback. Brown has to put Williams in positions to succeed. Although Brown was in quarterback meetings in his role as passing game coordinator, Williams said the two haven’t spent much time one-on-one.

That familiarity with each other needs to build quickly.

“We’ll do a good job of marrying everything up together and making everything look the same,” Williams said. “And then, from there, get a few easier passes, a few extra layups.”

Everything has been hard for this offense over the past three weeks. A layup here or there would help. The Bears are hoping Brown is the right man to provide just that.