‘He definitely changed the game.’ Examining Devin Hester’s clear case to be the 1st returner in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — in his 1st year on the ballot.

Although months and months of work go into prepa­ra­tion for the NFL draft, some­times deci­sions that can shape the future of a play­er and a fran­chise are required in a mat­ter of seconds.

With less than a minute remain­ing to make their sec­ond-round pick in 2006, the Ten­nessee Titans had Devin Hes­ter on the phone. They informed him that they planned to select him with the 45th pick, con­grat­u­lat­ed him and began to make trav­el arrange­ments to get him to Nashville.

Sud­den­ly the Titans end­ed the call, and before their time was up, they had turned in a card with the name of USC run­ning back LenDale White. Hes­ter shed a few tears, but he was back to being him­self when the Chica­go Bears called 12 picks lat­er and did in fact draft him — launch­ing the career of the great­est return­er in NFL history.

White scored 24 touch­downs for the Titans but was out of the league after four sea­sons. Hes­ter went on to elec­tri­fy a city, bring­ing the crowd at Sol­dier Field into a fren­zy every time he pre­pared for a return and “Crank That (Soul­ja Boy)” blast­ed out of the sta­di­um speak­ers. He became the ulti­mate spe­cial teams weapon.

Now the 39-year-old Hes­ter, in his first year of eli­gi­bil­i­ty, is one of 15 final­ists for the Pro Foot­ball Hall of Fame. The Class of 2022 will be announced Thurs­day night dur­ing the NFL Hon­ors awards show in Ingle­wood, Calif. (8 p.m., ABC‑7). Thir­ty Hall of Famers made their pri­ma­ry con­tri­bu­tions as mem­bers of the Bears — the most in the NFL — and Hes­ter is poised to become No. 31.

For­mer Bears spe­cial teams coor­di­na­tor Dave Toub, now with the Kansas City Chiefs, described him­self as the “squeaky wheel” in pre-draft meet­ings, lob­by­ing hard for play­ers he believed could improve his unit. When eval­u­at­ing Hes­ter, who left the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mia­mi with a year of eli­gi­bil­i­ty remain­ing, Toub knew he could be a dynam­ic return­er and start­ed bang­ing the table for him.

Hes­ter was an enig­ma enter­ing the 2006 draft because teams didn’t know if he could fit on defense — he longed to be a cor­ner­back like his men­tor, Deion Sanders — or on offense as a wide receiv­er. Some thought he might be avail­able in the mid­dle rounds sim­ply because he didn’t have a defined position.

The Titans saw Hester’s tal­ent but opt­ed for a short-yardage back in White who had mixed reviews for char­ac­ter. The Bears had con­vic­tion in Hes­ter, know­ing they could take time fig­ur­ing out how to deploy him on offense or defense while using him in the return game.

In the 2006 pre­sea­son, Hes­ter had four punt returns of 19 yards or more, and his speed, burst and abil­i­ty to change direc­tions lat­er­al­ly with­out skip­ping a beat were on full dis­play. But they were exhi­bi­tion games against a lot of play­ers who would soon be out of the league.

Then came the sea­son open­er in Green Bay. At the start of the fourth quar­ter, Pack­ers punter Jon Ryan unleashed a 50-yard punt. Hes­ter backpedaled to the 16-yard line to catch it, start­ed left before quick­ly cut­ting back right, picked an alley and — boom! — was gone for an 84-yard touchdown.

“We knew we had some­thing spe­cial in the pre­sea­son,” Toub said. “When he did it in the first game, it was unbe­liev­able. We real­ly knew. It kind of just snow­balled for the kid and us at the same time.”

Five weeks lat­er, Hester’s 83-yard punt return was the win­ning score in the 24–23 vic­to­ry at Ari­zona, the final piece of a remark­able sec­ond-half rally.

“It was pret­ty sud­den,” said Bren­don Ayan­bade­jo, a spe­cial teams ace who spent three sea­sons with the Bears and was a three-time Pro Bowl selec­tion. “With Coach Toub, our goal was to be the No. 1 spe­cial teams unit. Imme­di­ate­ly, Devin made an impact and we were like, ‘Man, we’ve got the best weapon here.’ He was so lethal. So special.”

Hes­ter had five return touch­downs as a rook­ie — plus a 108-yard return of a missed field goal — and six more in 2007 even as teams did every­thing they could to adjust.

The first strat­e­gy was to kick away from him, which occa­sion­al­ly led to kicks out of bounds. Then came squibs and bloops, so Toub had to change the prac­tice rou­tine and work with the ends ahead of Hes­ter on field­ing the ball on kick­off returns. The goal was to reach the 50, but any­thing beyond the 35 was a win.

That’s when Toub’s cre­ative juices got going.

“You got to the point where you were say­ing, ‘What are they think­ing this week?’” Toub said. “It was fun, man.”

With teams con­sis­tent­ly kick­ing away from Hes­ter, Toub start­ed deploy­ing two return­ers deep on kick­off returns and some­times on punts. That’s how the famous John­ny Knox play was born.

With oppo­nents kick­ing away from Hes­ter on punts, it allowed the Bears to line him up on one side of the field and then rush from the oppo­site side, know­ing the kick was head­ed in that direc­tion. That led to a blocked punt against the Pack­ers. The Bears also start­ed schem­ing to run coun­ters on returns, know­ing cov­er­age teams were over­pur­su­ing and leav­ing gaps on the back side.

Hes­ter fin­ished his career with 19 return touch­downs, all but one as a mem­ber of the Bears. His 14 punt return scores are the most in NFL his­to­ry. Add the missed field goal return against the New York Giants on Nov. 12, 2006, and he scored 20 touch­downs on spe­cial teams with his team going 14–4 in those games (he had mul­ti­ple return touch­downs in two games).

He ranks third in all-time punt return yardage with 3,696, behind only Bri­an Mitchell and Dave Meggett. Hes­ter was a three-time All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowl selec­tion. After his arrival, the Bears led the NFL in aver­age start­ing field posi­tion for five con­sec­u­tive sea­sons, a remark­able tes­ta­ment to his abil­i­ty and the fear he struck in opponents.

There are 354 play­ers in the Hall of Fame, and none was select­ed on the basis of his return abil­i­ty. Five spe­cial­ists have been enshrined: kick­ers Morten Ander­sen, George Blan­da (also a quar­ter­back), Lou Groza (also an offen­sive tack­le) and Jan Stenerud and punter Ray Guy.

Hester’s cre­den­tials to be the first Hall of Fame return­er aren’t in ques­tion. Only two return­ers were select­ed for the NFL 100 All-Time Team — Hes­ter and Bil­ly “White Shoes” John­son — and Hester’s sta­tis­tics are supe­ri­or. John­son is the only play­er on the NFL 100 list from 2019 who has been eli­gi­ble for the Hall of Fame and hasn’t been elected.

It’s almost cer­tain­ly a mat­ter of when for Hes­ter, not if. What’s unknown is his chance of break­ing through in his first year on the bal­lot. That’s a more dif­fi­cult path to Can­ton, Ohio, some­thing only 19 play­ers have done in the last 10 years after Pey­ton Man­ning, Calvin John­son and Charles Wood­son made it on the first bal­lot last year. In 2018, Bri­an Urlach­er, Ray Lewis and Randy Moss were elect­ed in Year 1.

Some play­ers who were con­sid­ered a slam dunk for the Hall of Fame have had to wait — some­times a few years, in many cas­es longer. Quar­ter­back Kurt Warn­er got in on his third bal­lot in 2017. Guard Steve Hutchin­son, a five-time All-Pro selec­tion, also need­ed three turns on the bal­lot before being elect­ed, as did wide receiv­er Mar­vin Harrison.

For­mer Bears defen­sive end Richard Dent was on the bal­lot for nine years until he was elect­ed, and Charles Haley, a five-time Super Bowl cham­pi­on and five-time Pro Bowler with 100½ career sacks, wait­ed 11 years.

Not mak­ing it on the first bal­lot isn’t a sign a play­er is unde­serv­ing but a tes­ta­ment to the back­log of tremen­dous play­ers who, for one rea­son or anoth­er, have had to bide their time. Hester’s resume will be weighed against offen­sive and defen­sive play­ers who played 800, 900 or more snaps per sea­son. Yes, Hes­ter had an impact on every game, but he got only a hand­ful of returns each week, not 60-plus snaps.

Reach­ing the final­ist stage in his first year is the best evi­dence that his name will be called soon — and per­haps in Year 1 — to be fit­ted for a gold jack­et. The muse­um in Can­ton doesn’t ful­ly reflect the game with­out at least one return­er, and Hes­ter should be the first.

“My argu­ment for him is how he changed the game,” Toub said. “They always talk about Hall of Fame guys, how they changed the game. He def­i­nite­ly changed the game. After Devin came into the league, every­body had to have a return­er. Every­one want­ed a guy like that because that is how we won games. We won games on defense and spe­cial teams. We proved you could do that.

“Every­body had to get a return­er and then they had to get cov­er guys. Teams start­ed get­ting guys for their ros­ter that could run and tack­le in space where their job was to cov­er kicks. Gun­ners became real impor­tant and then the empha­sis on the kick­ers. They had to get bet­ter. They had to kick bet­ter. They had to get stronger legs so they could kick touch­backs. They had to get a bet­ter vari­ety of kicks. There was a whole shift of per­son­nel because you didn’t have big guys run­ning down on kick­offs anymore.”

For­mer Min­neso­ta Viking Chris Kluwe had 71 punts against the Bears in games Hes­ter played, more than any play­er. Hes­ter returned three of those punts for touchdowns.

The sec­ond one came in Week 6 of the 2007 sea­son. Kluwe got off a boom­ing 54-yard spi­ral close to the Bears side­line. Back­track­ing, Hes­ter field­ed the kick at his 11-yard line and worked back to the 5.

“My absolute favorite one,” Kluwe said. “I hit just a beau­ti­ful punt, 4.8 or 4.9 (sec­onds) hang time. It was a gor­geous punt. He catch­es it and I thought, ‘This is going to be fan­tas­tic. We’re going to tack­le him inside the 10.’ We have six guys sur­round­ing him and he goes right through the mid­dle of them and takes it up the side­line for a touch­down. Just killed my net average.

“The threat of him tak­ing one back for a touch­down or even pop­ping off a big return was so much high­er than every­one else. I think I had three dif­fer­ent spe­cial teams coach­es that faced him, and they were all like: ‘We need to kick the ball out of bounds. We’re fine if it goes 30 to 35 yards. We can’t let it get into his hands.’ You’re giv­ing up so much field posi­tion when you do that. To give up 10 to 20 yards of field posi­tion because that is the best-case sce­nario … I’ve nev­er seen anoth­er guy like that.

“Hes­ter was, in my opin­ion, the best return­er to ever play the game so far.”

There are tal­ent­ed return­ers who war­rant atten­tion every week, but prepar­ing for Hes­ter was on a dif­fer­ent level.

“He was so game-chang­ing from the stand­point (of) how you had to pre­pare for him every week,” said Joe DeCamil­lis, who is in his fourth decade of coach­ing spe­cial teams in the NFL, now with the Los Ange­les Rams. “ ‘Damn, man, we can’t do this, we can’t do this and we can’t do this against him.’

“He total­ly dom­i­nat­ed your thoughts that week you played him, every sin­gle day. Every­thing you did was to make sure he did not hit you for a big return. That’s what the Hall of Fame is all about.”

DeCamil­lis got the chance to coach Hes­ter near the end of his career when DeCamil­lis came to the Bears in 2013. From afar, he had been amazed at how Hes­ter was able to cre­ate space on his own. So when he played against Hes­ter before com­ing to the Bears, he instruct­ed his punter to kick short and make Hes­ter catch the ball com­ing for­ward, cut­ting down the dis­tance the punt team had to cover.

“He just was unbe­liev­able when he had any type of chance to back up at the start,” DeCamil­lis said. “If you hit a 50-yarder and he didn’t have to come up on that ball, you were in trou­ble. He was going to make you pay. His vision was uncan­ny when he had the ball in his hands. Great speed.

“When I got there, he was so much fun to work with. He knew that he could make a play if he got the ball in his hands.”

Hes­ter worked at his craft and got bet­ter. Part of his lega­cy that stands out is that he remained dom­i­nant for such a long stretch. There have been oth­er elite return­ers such as Dante Hall and Josh Cribbs, but none had the stay­ing pow­er of Hester.

The day after Hes­ter began his career with the touch­down against the Pack­ers, Sanders said this about his pro­tege: “Devin has to pre­pare to under­stand that not every­body is going to keep kick­ing the ball down the mid­dle of the field.”

That’s exact­ly what the Indi­anapo­lis Colts did to open Super Bowl XLI, though.

“We had decid­ed all week that we were not going to kick the ball to Devin Hes­ter,” Colts coach Tony Dungy told Dan Patrick in 2016. “That night after the meet­ing, I thought that (not kick­ing to him) was play­ing scared. So the next morn­ing as we’re going to the game, I told the team I hope we lose the toss because if we do, we’re going to kick it right down the mid­dle to Hes­ter. We’re going to pound him. Then they know we’ve tak­en their best threat. They’re going to be finished.

“Thir­teen sec­onds lat­er he was in the end zone. Every­body is look­ing at me say­ing, who’s that? I went back and said to them, I told you we’d have a storm.”

A storm. Hes­ter cre­at­ed many of them through­out his career, and that’s why he’s a Hall of Fame final­ist in his first year of eligibility.

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