LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Thomas Brown met with the Bears for the first time on Monday as their interim head coach. After he asked players to stay unified in “making sure our house is right,” he got down to the business at hand.

There would be some operational changes after Matt Erberflus’ dismissal as head coach. Losing a figurehead means several must assume additional responsibilities. Brown will carry the largest load, as is customary with his new title.

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He has spread things out a bit, with the following changes:

Brown can’t coach from the booth anymore, meaning he’ll call offensive plays from the sideline. Receivers coach Chris Beatty has been promoted to offensive coordinator and will help from upstairs and with the offensive game planning in the passing game. As a side note, offensive line coach Chris Morgan remains running game coordinator.

Defensive coordinator Eric Washington will call defensive plays, a responsibility that previously belonged to Eberflus. Richard Hightower will remain in charge of special teams.

While Brown is responsible for all of it, he’s going to let those coaches do their thing. Eberflus was known to sit in almost everywhere.

Brown isn’t going to hover.

“I am not a micromanager,” Brown said on Monday, in his first press conference at interim head coach. “I obviously will be involved with their game plan, but I trust those guys 100 percent to do their jobs with excellence.”

It also involves doing jobs with accountability for mistakes. Brown said, unprompted, that he’s “not exempt from responsibility” for the end-of-game issues that have plagued the Bears in latter portions of this six-game losing streak. As important as anything, that has to get right.

“We will have an internal process we’ll go through on a weekly basis to prepare ourselves for those opportunities,” Brown said. “And on gameday, go execute. Don’t panic. Do a great job communicating. Be poised in the moment. Make a decision and go roll with it. That’s the thought process.”

Brown’s thought process does not involve his future. These next five games and the periods between them are an extended audition to be considered for the opportunity to be Chicago’s full-time head coach. That’s out-of-sight, out-of-mind, a fact that’s believable when you hear Brown talk about tuning out noise and deleting media about him when it shows up via text.

His press conference began shortly after team president Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles detailed what they’re looking for in the next head coach, but he wasn’t trying to fit himself in that box right now.

“I’m not worried about what happens in five weeks,” Brown said. “I really don’t. It’s not even in my thought process. I’m focused on this very moment and how to do the best job I can for this football team to help lead these guys the right way and go have success.”

Brown wants to get back on the winning track by establishing proper possesses to do so, to unify the locker room and the organization and include everyone in the process of getting better.

“It’s all hands on deck, and again, it’s not about me,” Brown said. “It’s about this football team. So every decision made is going to be about what’s best for this football team moving forward and I’m going to worry about the future in the future. I’m worrying about right now, today.

“… I’m going to be where my feet are. And so it’s about preparing us for the opportunity this week, for that challenge, and that starts with our execution every single day we walk in this building.”