Although the Panthers and Colts are recent examples of an incoming coaching staff keeping a coordinator in place, the Bears‘ 2024 coordinators will not stick around like Ejiro Evero and Gus Bradley did elsewhere. Neither Thomas Brown nor DC Eric Washington will be retained under Ben Johnson, The Athletic’s Adam Jahns notes. O-line coach Chris Morgan, quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph and interim OC Chris Beatty are also out in Chicago. This is not especially surprising, as new staffs regularly want to bring in their own hires.
Brown, 38, will be on his way to a fourth team in four years. The former Sean McVay assistant spent the 2023 season alongside Evero, as Carolina’s OC, and moved from pass-game coordinator to interim OC to interim HC in Chicago last year. The Bears went 1-4 under Brown, who has received OC interest elsewhere. Washington came over from the Bills in 2024, when Matt Eberflus replaced Alan Williams after calling the signals himself for most of the 2023 season. Washington, 55, only took over play-calling duties in 2024 when the Bears fired Eberflus.
Here is the latest from the coaching carousel:
- Teams making HC hires will expand the OC and DC carousels, and the Bears’ entrance on the coordinator market revealed interest in Dennis Allen. The rumored favorite to follow Johnson to Chicago, Allen may also have heard from the 49ers, as ESPN.com’s Nick Wagoner indicates the NFC West team showed some interest in the ex-Bengals DC. Allen, though, may have been a Robert Saleh contingency plan. Although Allen has been closely linked to the Bears, Saleh is still in the mix for the Jaguars — with a second interview scheduled — and Raiders. The Cowboys also met with the former Jets HC, who would seem likely to rejoin the 49ers if his HC paths close.
- Speaking of Washington, CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones adds the Packers interviewed him for their defensive line coach role. Prior to his one-season Bears stay, Washington was the Bills’ D-line coach for the previous four years. He was Carolina’s DC from 2018-19. With a few DC gigs yet to open, it will be interesting to see if Washington would return to the position coach level early rather than wait on a potential lateral move. Green Bay is also interviewing Tampa Bay D-line coach Kacy Rodgers for the role, per NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport, who adds Rodgers’ Buccaneers contract is up.
- Former defensive coordinator Marquand Manuel will change facilities, but he will (presumably) not need to relocate. The four-year Jets safeties coach is joining the Giants as their DBs coach, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler tweets. A former NFL safety who ascended to the role of Falcons DC in the late 2010s, Manuel has been an NFL staffer since 2012. The Giants went 3-14 but did not fire their head coach or their coordinators, but Shane Bowen — after retaining some holdover staffers last year — is bringing in his own guy to replace Jerome Henderson, who spent five...
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