When Thomas Brown takes the sidelines for the Chicago Bears as acting, or interim, head coach, it will complete the circuit on a historic battery for the organization. Brown is already a part of Bears history, replacing the only coach the team has ever fired mid-season.
What comes next is certainly a more positive footnote.
Bears’ Historic Moment Not Focus for Thomas Brown, Staff
Thomas Brown Not Oblivious to Historic Precedent
Brown’s next five games are not an audition, per se. Management and ownership understand the circumstances and situations he faces. Brown and his staff’s view is, understandably, tempered.
Still, his promotion means the Bears have a black quarterback (Caleb Williams), head coach (Brown), offensive coordinator (Chris Beatty), QB coach (Kerry Joseph), general manager (Ryan Poles), and president/CEO (Kevin Warren) at the same time for the first time in its 104 years.
Add the assistant general manager Ian Cunningham and CAO Ted Crews to the list.
“I’m definitely aware of it. I’m obviously reminded every day of certain things that have transpired before here. Obviously, the most important thing to me is making sure I have this team in the right spot, that we’re wired mentally from top to bottom, that we’re executing and firing on all cylinders as far as the coaching staff, goals, and players,” Brown told Clocker Sports on Friday during his press conference.
“I also understand my background. What it’s taken for me to get here and understand and accept the responsibility that this position holds and what it means for everyone else that’s coming behind me. So I’ve owned that, accepted that my entire life. So that’s kind of nothing new to me.”
The Bears’ front office is a diverse group that features women in prominent roles. Assistant running backs coach Jennifer King and player personnel coordinator Ashton Washington cross both boundaries. But the franchise’s history of race relations is inescapable and makes what is happening and could be even more intriguing.
They donned their 1936 throwback uniforms in their Week 12 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
That uniform caused a stir when it was first brought back in 2019 since it harkened back to a time when the Bears were complicit in keeping black players out of the NFL.
Bears chairman George McCaskey acknowledged that past in a video to announce the uniform’s reintroduction. Flanked by the Bears’ “Social Justice Committee,” McCaskey explained how the organization was eager to redefine what the uniform stood for.
For our NFC North showdown this Sunday at Soldier Field we'll be wearing our classic jerseys for the first time since 1936.
Here’s an important message from our players and Chairman, looking ahead to Sunday. pic.twitter.com/SPbraNMFvL
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 25, 2019
Bears founder George “Papa Bear” Halas remains a polarizing figure for his role in the ban.
Sorting Myth From Truth About NFL’s Ban on Black Players
The story of the NFL’s ban on black players is often pointed back to former George Preston Marshall, an open and avid racist who was sure to include how successful his NFL segregation-era teams were in his Pro Football Hall of Fame bio.
Essayist Neal Rozendaal challenged the widely accepted idea that Marshall spearheaded the movement in a 2014 article re-purposed into a singular piece in 2020.
Rozendaal cites a lack of Marshall taking explicit credit for the shift during his lifetime.
He also questions the idea that Halas – a founding father of the NFL and one of its more powerful voices – was eager to break the ban and sign UCLA’s Kenny Washington in 1940 only to be struck down by the less-established Marshall.
Rozendaal argued the overall idea of Marshall’s role in the NFL’s ban on black players was simpler than explaining more complex reasons that ensnared revered figures like Halas.
Rozendaal notes that the Bears did not sign many black players before the ban.
To summarize, the large-market teams in the NFL had held a color line against Black participation on their clubs for years. When the NFL reorganized in 1927, casting out most of the small-market teams, the discrimination that already existed toward African-Americans among the higher-profile, more successful league teams became much more evident. It reduced Black participation in the NFL from a rarity to one or two exceptions of a looming rule…a rule that would finally be enacted in 1934.
This post-hoc historical analysis of the color ban is a recent development. Noting that the color ban had started in 1934, historians looked at what was happening that year in football and around the country in an attempt to identify root causes of the ban. With the Great Depression having taken hold in the United States and with George Preston Marshall, a famous segregationist, assuming ownership of the Redskins franchise in 1933, those two were singled out as the fundamental causes for the 1934 color ban.
But that analysis ignored the reality that the movement toward a color ban started much sooner – league-wide at least since 1927, and among the top-tier large market teams, arguably from the very formation of the NFL. And maybe that’s why we’ve never taken a more nuanced view of the history of African-Americans in pro football. Ultimately, it reveals an uncomfortable truth: that the NFL’s color ban wasn’t the singular vision of a lone racist in Marshall. Rather, it was merely the culmination of a movement for which every owner at that time bears a certain amount of responsibility.
Thomas Brown, Bears Coaching Staff Not Focused on Historic Precedent
The Bears have had several black quarterbacks in their history. Justin Fields, Williams’ predecessor is among them. The same goes for their OC and QB coach positions. But Poles and Warren are the first in their positions.
Brown is just the second in the franchise’s history, the first since Lovie Smith.
The Bears fired Smith following the 2012 season following a 10-6 record. That was an improvement over the previous season for Smith. He remains the last Bears coach who won a playoff game and guided the team to a Super Bowl.
Many point to the Bears’ 3-5 finish after a 7-1 start and the inability to find a proper offensive coordinator as Smith’s downfall. The Bears have had one winning season and fielded a higher-ranking scoring offense just once since firing Smith.
It is understandable, then, if there was some apprehension on the current Bears staff’s part about getting too far out over their skis with excitement about what they are doing.
For now, at least, Joseph says the moment does not resonate with him in that way.
“It doesn’t, to be honest with you,” Joseph told Clocker Sports on Thursday after offering a smirk similar to Brown’s. “It’s just been, ‘How can we put our minds together and go win a football game?’ That’s [it]. Let’s go win one football game, get off this six-game slide. Let’s go win one football game.
“We don’t even talk about it. We don’t think about it. It’s like, ‘Man, how can we go out here and have a good day of practicing?”
Asked again, Washington, again smirking, insisted they “don’t talk about it.” Perhaps that changes with permanence.