Former Bears coach Thomas Brown now on Patriots team 'built on right principles' heading into Super Bowl

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Former Bears coach Thomas Brown emerged from the wreckage of the Matt Eberflus era with a spot on one of the top coaching staffs in the NFL. Now he’s on a trip to the Super Bowl.

Brown, 39, was with the Bears in 2024, going from passing-game coordinator to interim offensive coordinator to interim head coach for the final five games of the season after Eberflus was fired. After being bypassed in favor of Ben Johnson last January, he landed with the Patriots on new coach Mike Vrabel’s staff as tight ends coach and passing-game coordinator. He’ll coach Sunday in Super Bowl LX against the Seahawks.

“It’s been great,” Brown told the Sun-Times. “I had the chance to go through the interview process last year with a few different teams. I didn’t know [Vrabel] at all, but I’d heard great things about him from coaches and players that had been around him, and through the interview process we hit it off.”

Brown has been a candidate for several head-coaching jobs the last few years, including the Cardinals’ this year. He got an interview with the Bears after his month-plus as interim coach, but Johnson was the favorite from start to finish.

When Vrabel, who also interviewed with the Bears last winter, took the Patriots job and hired longtime NFL coach Josh McDaniels as his offensive coordinator, Brown got a chance to work with a much more solid staff and in a more functional situation than he had with the Bears.

“I wanted to get back to a place that was built on the right principles,” said Brown, who was the offensive coordinator for the perpetually stumbling Panthers before the Bears hired him. “[Vrabel] does a really good job of building the culture and being about the right stuff, and I’m excited to be part of this process.”

Brown is coaching in his second Super Bowl after winning one under Sean McVay as assistant head coach and running backs coach for the Rams four years ago.