Two of recent NFC offensive coordinators will be part of the Bears’ 2024 staff, which will have a major Sean McVay imprint. Thomas Brown will follow Shane Waldron to Chicago.
With it being clear for weeks Brown was done in Charlotte, the Chicago Tribune’s Brad Biggs notes he will join the Bears as passing game coordinator. While Brown spent last season as the Panthers’ OC, he worked on McVay’s Rams staff from 2020-22. Brown and Waldron worked together for the 2020 Rams. Prior to joining the Panthers last year, Brown worked as a tight ends and running backs coach in Los Angeles.
Other teams interviewed Brown, 37, for their OC jobs, but he will head for Illinois. The Bears brought in Brown for an OC interview earlier this month but hired Waldron soon after. As the Bears prepare for a monumental decision on offense — one that almost definitely comes down to a future with Justin Fields or Caleb Williams — they will have two former McVay staffers running the show whenever that call is made.
The Panthers hired Brown as their OC last year. While NFL history suggested it was safe for Brown to expect Frank Reich to be retained for at least two years, David Tepper bucked that by firing the longtime HC after 11 games. This came after Reich had yanked play-calling duties back from Brown following an initial three-week run. Brown finished the season as the Panthers’ play-caller, but as the team has made retaining DC Ejiro Evero a priority from Reich’s staff, it never stood in the way of Brown looking elsewhere.
An abysmal Panthers season led to the Reich firing and an eventual Dave Canales pickup. Canales has brought in Brad Idzik, who also worked under Waldron in Seattle, to be his non-play-calling OC. The Panthers ranked 31st on offense under Reich and Brown, but the latter interviewed for the Bears, Patriots and Steelers’ jobs. Although the New England position has not been filled, Brown may not have been the favorite. The Steelers hired Arthur Smith earlier today.
Brown will rejoin D.J. Moore in Chicago, though the two did not exactly overlap long in Carolina. The Panthers traded their top wide receiver to the Bears — in the Bryce Young swap — barely a month after hiring Brown. Moore represents a key piece as the Bears evaluate their quarterback situation, with Waldron and Brown input potentially on tap as the top offensive voices in the building.
Sounds like another nice addition to the coaching staff.
Coaching staffs are absurdly bloated already. The message you’re trying to get to a player only gets more muddled the more voices you add to the choir. If the intent here is to clarity things for Fields it will simply have the opposite effect.
Hes not coming to work with Fields. CW