For Thomas Brown, a Super Bowl berth with Patriots is sweeter because of experiences

DENVER — Thomas Brown stood in the middle of a euphoric New England Patriots locker room on Sunday and thought about the wild ride of his coaching journey that had led him to this point.

As the Patriots’ passing coordinator and tight ends coach, Brown was part of one of the most dramatic turnarounds in NFL history: A Patriots team that went 3-14 last season had just won the AFC championship, defeating Denver in a blizzard 10-7. Now it’s on to Santa Clara, California, where New England will face Seattle in Super Bowl LX.

Brown, 39, will make his second Super Bowl appearance in four years. In 2022 he was an assistant head coach on the Los Angeles Rams’ team that reached the Super Bowl and won.

“They’re all special and I’m excited about the opportunity to have a chance to go and win a second,” he said. “But you never take it for granted. You take it one game at a time. I’m looking forward to enjoying it tonight and then getting back to it.”

Between the high of the Rams’ Super Bowl appearance four years ago and the high of this one with New England, Brown has dealt with challenges that severely tested his mettle and self-confidence.

“People love to talk about growth and adversity but never want to go through it,” he said. “The only way that you end up being able to become a better person, a stronger person and develop character is to go through some scenarios and situations to see how you respond to it.”

He added: “One of my favorite quotes is that the elite are the elite because of their response, not because of their rise.”

After the Rams’ Super Bowl season, Brown was promoted to tight ends coach and retained the assistant head coach title. The Rams finished 5-12 that next season.

In 2023, Brown was hired by the Carolina Panthers as offensive coordinator. His primary responsibility was to work with rookie quarterback Bryce Young. After an 0-6 start with Young struggling, head coach Frank Reich took away play-calling from Brown. Carolina finished 2-15.

Last season, Brown was hired as the Bears’ passing game coordinator under head coach Matt Eberflus. He wound up serving in three different roles. Eberflus fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron in November of that season and promoted Brown to that position. When Eberflus was fired three weeks later, Brown was named interim head coach. He finished 1-4; the Bears finished the season 5-12.

“It was a mix of a lot of different emotions,” Brown said of his season with the Bears. “I’m definitely grateful to have the opportunity to be seen in that light by the organization, because they could have picked somebody else. But it was definitely mixed emotions. I’m not going to lie about that. But I will say it built a ton of confidence in my ability to become a head coach because it will never be that difficult.

“I’ll have a chance to start from the very beginning and build a staff versus basically trying to save a sinking ship with a million different holes, and now you’re trying to find some patchwork to plug up three holes, and then three more holes emerge.”

After the Bears decided not to bring Thomas back, he received a message from Mike Vrabel, the new Patriots head coach, who was putting together his staff. They did not know each other, but Vrabel said he was impressed by the way Brown handled the chaos in Chicago.

Thomas said that outside of Mark Richt, his head coach at the University of Georgia who hired him there and then took him to the University of Miami, every head coach who hired him had no previous connection to him, including Vrabel. He and Rams head coach Sean McVay played against each other in high school in Georgia, but they didn’t know each other.

“Most of the jobs that I’ve had have come through people I didn’t know, and that was the opposite of what I heard when I first got into coaching,” he said. “People tell you about networking and branding yourself and who you know.

“I’ve been able to keep my head down and grind. God has given me some tremendous opportunities and opened doors that I couldn’t open for myself. I just learned to be where my feet are, focus on the most important thing, which is right in front of me, and the future will take care of itself.”

Vrabel hired Josh McDaniels as his offensive coordinator and asked Brown to be the Patriots’ passing game coordinator and tight end coach. The Patriots created an explosive offense, triggered by second-year quarterback Drake Maye, who took a major step forward in his development.

Together they engineered New England’s historic turnaround. 

As he stood in the Patriots’ locker room on Sunday soaking in the atmosphere, Brown said his experience in Los Angeles, then Carolina and Chicago, made this moment even sweeter.

“You can’t take things for granted,” he said. “In my last three years – first in 2022 with the Rams, then in Carolina for a year, then Chicago for a year, with three consecutive losing seasons after going to the Super Bowl, you almost get that feeling that you may never make it again. So, you can’t take this for granted. I just try to cherish every moment.”

Brown is part of a cadre of brilliant young Black assistant coaches who are poised to make a mark in the NFL — provided they are given a fair opportunity. This, of course, has been the timeless rub in the NFL with its conflicted relationship first with Black players and now with aspiring Black head coaches.

With talented coaches in the pipeline, I asked Brown if he was optimistic about the future of Black assistants.

“I’m not overly optimistic about it just because there’s only so much you can control when it comes to the process of how you get hired, and often times there’s a goal post maneuver of what the qualifications are to be in a certain position or not,” he said. “All you can do is try to make yourself undeniable, and when you have an opportunity to get one of those seats you got to go kill it and be consistent.”

This has been a persistent struggle for Black assistants, especially for offensive coaches who have had to struggle with lingering stereotypes that Blacks lack the acumen and intelligence to coach offense. This was the same mentality that resisted the presence of Black quarterbacks. Eric Bieniemy, recently hired by the Kansas City Chiefs, is the NFL’s only Black offensive coordinator.

This is also where the mountain continues for Black assistant NFL coaches who have to overcome the old boys’ network and nepotism that consistently has kept Black assistants on the margins.

Progress for African Americans is often like a gigantic merry-go-round: every generation moves, yet somehow when the ride ends you get off where you got on and haven’t really gone anywhere.

When the Patriots and Broncos met in the AFC Championship Game in January 2016, there were five Black head coach among the NFL’s 32 teams. A decade later there are two and no African American is expected to be hired as head coach in this coaching cycle.

“There’s no question it’s better; there’s definitely more opportunities, there are more of us in particular roles,” Thomas said. “But the navigating process to get there is still the same obstacles and I think until there’s overall society change or change in power I don’t foresee it ever changing it because people don’t voluntarily give up power. They get beat at some point.”

Since beginning his coaching career in 2011 at the University of Georgia, Brown has done an excellent job of navigating the system: from Chattanooga to Marshall to Wisconsin to Miami to South Carolina as either a running backs coach or offensive coordinator. In the NFL, he has been a coordinator and an interim head coach. He has one Super Bowl championship ring and has a chance to win a second.

After Sunday’s game, I asked Brown that if in 2011 someone would have told him that he would have accomplished all of this how would he have reacted.

“I would first have probably told them he was drunk,” Thomas said, “But it would have been a great thing to be able to get that perspective and probably would have put my mind at ease about what the future holds.

“But I also think that in this profession we’re results- and next-opportunity driven so when you accomplish your goal it’s like ‘OK, then next year what’s the next opportunity, next goal?’ ”

When I asked Brown what he thought the next five years might look like, he narrowed his focus.

“Honestly, my next thing is doing the best job I can do here,” he said. “Every opportunity I’ve had, whether its promotion or having the opportunity to get a job somewhere, has come from doing the role I was in.

“I’m super excited to be in this position with the Patriots to go out and chase greatness.”

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