It’s rare for an interim head coach to right the ship.
Only twice has an interim coach led a team into the playoffs: Rich Bisaccia with the Raiders in 2021 after Jon Gruden resigned in October of that season, and Wally Lemm with the Houston Oilers in 1961.
Bruce Arians is still the only interim coach to be named Coach of the Year after he temporarily took over the Indianapolis Colts while Chuck Pagano was treated for leukemia. Arians went 9-3 in his 12-game stint, leading the Colts to a playoff berth before Pagano returned during the final week of the regular season.
Bisaccia, Lemm and Arians are the diamonds in the interim rough.
This season alone, interim coaches are a combined 5-17. Darren Rizzi, who replaced Dennis Allen in New Orleans, has the best record of the three interims around the league: 3-4. Jeff Ulbrich is 2-9 with the Jets since taking over for Robert Saleh and Thomas Brown is 0-4 since the Bears fired Matt Eberflus the morning after Thanksgiving.
Why is it a struggle? “You don’t have an interim tag if everything is phenomenal,” Brown told reporters at Halas Hall on Monday. “There’s an interim because there’s difficulties, there’s a reason for change, at least in the eyes of ownership. I knew what I was walking into and [didn’t] flinch.”
When Brown was elevated to interim head coach, Chicago had just lost their sixth straight game following a clock management disaster from Eberflus. At 4-8, hopes for a playoff berth in Caleb Williams’ rookie season had vanished and just trying to figure out how to win again became the No. 1 goal.
Unfortunately for Brown, it’s not something the Bears have solved in his brief stint. Handed an impossible task and asked to guide the team to the season’s finish line, matters have only gotten worse and games further out of hand. Instead of losing close under Eberflus, Brown lost big in his first three games as interim head coach with the defense, Eberflus’ focus, surrendering 30+ points in all three games.
Now, with Ben Johnson busy earning a blank check for himself wherever the Detroit Lions offensive coordinator lands as head coach, Brown is seemingly one week away from being cast aside by the very organization that promoted him from passing game coordinator to interim offensive coordinator to interim head coach in a 17-day span.
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Brown faced an uphill battle to earn the permanent head coaching role in Chicago. While managing an offense he had taken over three weeks prior, he’d have to rein in a dysfunctional locker room culture that had played a major role in the previous head coach’s firing, and he’d be responsible for game and clock decisions – an issue that had eluded Eberflus in his 48 games with the Bears.
It might be unfair to say that Brown failed his five-week audition for the job given the hand the interim coach was dealt. However, the reality of the situation is that at 0-4 and with questionable in-game decisions still leading to negative outcomes, the likelihood of the organization removing the interim tag and installing Brown as the next permanent head coach is small – even smaller than it was four weeks ago.
But while Brown finishes a stretch most head coaches would hope to forget, the 38-year-old is using the rest of his time in Chicago to reflect and grow.
“As I think about the last couple years of my career, but also just life in general, just reflect on difficulties,” Brown said on Monday. “How much I’ve thankfully learned and grown to appreciate difficult moments. I think the reality is that you never figure out who you really are until you go through difficult moments. People talk about courage and mental toughness until you have to actually deal with something that’s going to be mentally taxing to you or put stretch and strain on your body.”
When asked about possible frustrations from the results of his interim stint potentially impacting his coaching future, Brown said, “I’m never frustrated by the future because it hasn’t happened yet. All I know is I just care about where my feet are and being present and how I attack the moment.
“Frustrated by the work you put in and not being able to get the result, that’s always going to be frustrating. That will never change. … When it comes to those aspirations that I have from a personal goal standpoint, I’m more confident than ever about the eventual result. That’ll come at some point when it comes, whenever that’s played out for me.”
Maybe Brown isn’t the guy as some thought (*hand up*) when he took over for Eberflus on November 29. He also wasn’t dropped into an ideal situation. But Brown knew it wouldn’t be that when he accepted the job.
Now, at 4-12 with just one more shot to pick up a win before the book finally closes on a disastrous 2024 season, the interim head coach believes, “Whenever it’s done, when it’s over, I’ll walk away with a 100% confidence as far as the approach, the growth opportunities and whatever happens next.”
