Thomas Brown was seen as a potential head-coaching candidate this offseason despite only completing his second year as an assistant in the NFL in 2021. It’s a testament to how highly he’s regarded around the league, earning praise regularly from Sean McVay during his weekly media sessions.
Though he had an interview with the Dolphins for their head coaching job and with the Vikings for their offensive coordinator role – which went to Wes Phillips – Brown is back with the Rams in a new role. He’s still the assistant head coach, but he’s moving from coaching the running backs to leading the tight end room – a completely new position for him, a former running back in his own right.
Brown said he was initially reluctant to make the switch after McVay proposed it to him because he’s tried to master his craft around running backs, but Brown is excited about the new challenge that this change presents.
“It’s going to be very beneficial for me as a coach and be able to challenge me, force me to grow, which is what I’ve always asked for and prayed for is to be in an opportunity where I have access to knowledge,” he said Wednesday. “But also, I think places of comfort are great, but you never grow in places of comfort. Being able to get outside my comfort zone and force myself to grow and have some more involvement and keep rollin’ here with the Rams.”
Brown was still heavily involved in the offense as the assistant head coach and running backs coach, but by coaching the tight ends, he’ll get even more exposure to blocking assignments and the passing game.
“From a challenge standpoint, to me, it’s just being able to be in a different environment, different coaching techniques when it comes to my role and responsibility,” Brown said. “But I’ve always viewed things from an all-11 perspective anyway. I’ve always tried to take a big-picture role when it comes to what we do. I never got locked in to just running backs only. It was always kind of just seeing the entire big picture, just being able to have now an opportunity to get my hands involved in the coaching is going to be a big part of it.”
Given the interest he garnered this past offseason, Brown is likely to be a head coaching candidate again in 2023. And by moving from running backs coach to tight ends coach, he’s only going to broaden his knowledge of the offense and make himself a more attractive candidate to interested teams.
