SANTA CLARA, Calif. — One advantage the Bears have as they prep for the upcoming coaching search is they don’t have to decide now on interim coach Thomas Brown’s candidacy. He gets an extended audition, and he gets the full five weeks of it to make his case.
That’s no less true after the Bears got blown out 38-13 by the 49ers on Sunday in his debut. It’s a big, ugly, scarlet and gold L on the wrong side of his ledger, but Brown has been abruptly promoted from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator to head coach in less than a month and took the helm of a ship Matt Eberflus sunk long before he got fired.
It’s neither necessary nor prudent to rush to judgment on Brown. That said, this was a terrible first step in his quest to win the full-time job.
The Bears could not have played worse at Levi’s Stadium and looked like a team ready to be done with this season. Celebrities, they’re just like us! Even as players press on motivated at least by future earnings, if nothing else, the prospect of four more games is daunting.
The Bears were pushed to the brink of playoff elimination by falling to 4-9 — some technicalities involving multi-team ties remain in play — but that’s never what this was about with Brown. General manager Ryan Poles wasn’t counting on him to save the season. What he wanted was for him to check several key boxes:
• Prove his own legitimacy as the Bears evaluate him against top-tier alternatives like Ben Johnson and Kliff Kingsbury.
• Keep quarterback Caleb Williams soaring into next season.
• Revitalize a group that was demoralized by Eberflus’ mistakes and monotony.
Brown made no progress in any of those categories Sunday.
The key question for him is whether the Bears are bracing for more games like this, which surely would take him out of the running, or he can do what Eberflus never could and turn them around.
The tenacious final four games are the ideal test. The Bears visit the Vikings on Monday, and they’re fresh off dropping 42 points on the Falcons for their sixth consecutive win. Then they host the Lions, the class of the NFL at 12-1. After that it’s the NFC West-leading Seahawks, who have won four in a row, and then a trip to Lambeau Field, where the Bears haven’t won since 2015.
That’s a lot, but it’s the job. Brown’s trying to show he’s up for it.
Thomas Brown’s debut ended in a 38-13 loss.
Darnold passed for 250 yards after halftime to help the Vikings (11-2) break a 21-all tie early in the fourth quarter and stay one game behind NFC North-leading Detroit.
If Thomas Brown has been rehearsing his pregame speech, he’s not letting on.