Should Thomas Brown be a Bears head coaching candidate? Yes, but…

We’re about 72 hours away from the Chicago Bears taking the Minnesota Vikings to overtime on Sunday at Soldier Field. The 72 hours have offered plenty of discussion about Thomas Brown and whether or not he deserves to be in the conversation to replace Matt Eberflus if he is fired at the end of the season.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t entertain the thought. Matt, Luis and I have discussed it. I could probably be talked into it. But let’s slow down a bit, because I think it’s still too early to have a serious conversation. But I think we are reaching a point where we need to start a dialogue. The question is when?

If the Bears lose to the Detroit Lions tomorrow, we may have that conversation sooner than we thought

The Chicago Bears have never fired a head coach during the season – we’ve heard that ad nauseam. I will say this: they almost fired a coach after a Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions. People forget how close the Bears came to firing Matt Nagy after their Thanksgiving game against the Lions in 2021. Remember Patch reporter Mark Konkol brought the news in the days leading up to the match (Louis: Yes. I. Most certainly. Do.), and Nagy was asked about it at his weekly press conference?

Nagy denied it, and so did George McCaskey, but it seemed more like cold feet than anything else. Had Konkol not broken the news and made the McCaskeys the talk of football work in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I think Nagy would have been fired.

Could this be the time the Bears pull the trigger and can their head coach after a Thanksgiving game against the Lions? If things go as the oddsmakers think, I wouldn’t be surprised. The Bears are 10-point underdogs, and if the Lions blow them out for their sixth straight loss and eighth of the season, Matt Eberflus could coach his final game this week.

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If the McCaskeys were going to buck the trend, now would be the time to do it. Firing Eberflus on Friday would give the interim coach (possibly Thomas Brown) a mini-bye to prepare for the new role and Chicago’s next opponent.

The Bears would have eight losses, so they would not be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. They could finish 9-8, give Thomas Brown an extended audition and set a precedent in their locker room that losing is no longer acceptable in Halas Hall.

Thomas Brown has revived Caleb Williams and the offense; why not see if he can have the same effect on the rest of the team?

Chicago’s offense was in disarray before Thomas Brown took over for Shane Waldron. It performed worse than it had all season, players began to question management openly, and Caleb Williams appeared to be moving back.

Since Brown has taken over as OC, Chicago’s offense looks and sounds like a different unit. Not only have they turned in two of their best performances of the season against divisional foes, but they look and sound like a group with new life. They have responded to Brown’s matter-of-fact communication and accountability style.

Now the defense looks like the offense did during their post-bye week. Chicago’s defense gave up 30 points on Sunday against the Vikings and looked like a shell of the saw version of the first half of the season. Not having Jaquan Brisker hurts, but that can’t be an excuse for the entire unit, which looks like it’s on a death march to the finish line.

Brown is not a defensive coach, but he seems like the leader that Eberflus is not. Why not let him try to revive the unit on the other side of the ball as he finishes the attack?

If we’re going to have the Thomas Brown head coach conversation, let’s have it after we’ve seen what he can do as an interim

Again, this is all hypothetical. The Bears could win tomorrow and save Eberflus from a Black Friday shootout. They can lose by three scores and the McCaskeys can remain cowards.

But the time to make a move is now for several reasons. If they make the smart choice, then we can have a realistic conversation about Thomas Brown as a head coaching candidate in 2025. Let’s see how he navigates the sinking ship that is the Bears’ 2024 season while wearing the captain’s hat.

Until then, there is little point in having the conversation.