Bear Digest

Coaches Relish Ties to This Week's Bears Hall of Fame Inductees

Memories of coaching on teams with both Devin Hester and Julius Peppers or facing them have a few Bears assistants heaping praise on the new Hall of Famers.

Gene Chamberlain

Devin Hester and his wife, Zingha, look at his memorabila in Canton during a May visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Devin Hester and his wife, Zingha, look at his memorabila in Canton during a May visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. / Julie Vennitti Botos / Canton Repository / USA TODAY NETWORK
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The chance to be in Canton for part of the festivities of enshrinement week at the Pro Football Hall of Fame is not lost on the Bears.

How could it be, with former Bears Devin Hester and Steve McMichael, as well as Panthers/Bears/Packers edge rusher Julius Peppers going into the Hall of Fame? There are ties even to this team long after those players have left the game.

"Just to be there and to be actually in the game will be quite the treat," said Bears running back Roschon Johnson, who wears the jersey No. 23 Hester wore. "To see Devin Hester get inducted along with a few other guys, it's real special. I'm going to try to soak up all the moments of just pretty much being there."

The Bears won't actually be there during the induction ceremonies as those are Saturday and players will be back at Halas Hall then working toward their next preseason game Aug. 10 at Buffalo.

However, they can appreciate what the players did to impact the game.

Eric Washington, in particular, can do that. He coached with the Bears during Hester's run in Chicago and with the Bears and Panthers he coached Peppers as defensive line coach.

"It is an unbelievable blessing to have come all the way from where I was and where those guys were in their career to watch them receive this particular honor and to have worked with Julius Peppers in two different places, to know that not only the type of player that he was but the type of person that he is, gotten to know him in that way," Washington said.

Peppers finished with 159 1/2 sacks, 37 with the Bears from 2010-13. Peppers played for the Panthers from 2002-09, and when Washington went to Carolina in 2011 he coached Peppers again for the end of his career in 2017 and 2018.

Having been with the Bears in that era, Washington also saw Hester up close.

"Devin brought a dimension to the return game that only a few guys who have ever played in this league have ever done," Washington said. "And the other one was here: (Gale) Sayers. And Deion Sanders. So to know that this person who was capable of scoring every time he touched the ball, I was on the right end of that and the wrong end of it when I left here and went to Carolina. So it’s a really special thing to have experienced. And I'm looking forward to seeing those guys."

After Hester's phenomenal Bears career ran its course with 20 TD returns, counting the postseason kick return in Super Bowl XLI, he went to the Falcons and had one very strong season in 2014 in the same division as Washington's Panthers team. Hester actually averaged an excellent 13.3 yards per punt return for the Falcons in 2013 after Bears GM Phil Emery didn't want to pay to bring him back in Chicago. He made his final TD return against Pittsburgh for the Falcons in that season.

Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower remembers coaching against Hester well. He was special teams assistant in Washington from 2010-13, and his last year there was Hester's final one with the Bears. His last TD return for the Bears was an 81-yarder brought back against Hightower's 2013 Redskins special teams.

"He's off-the-charts great," Hightower said of Hester. "Just greatness. When you talk about greatness. And I think every special teams coach in the NFL feels that way. He made it so you could not not watch fourth down. You had to watch it."

Hester was one of those players who actually changed the game.

"It changed the type of punters we have in the game now because now they have to be more directional," Hightower said. "He cost a lot of coaches a lot of sleep. It was tough to try to keep the ball away from him on punt and on kickoff. And just the way the rules have changed, I'm glad Devin was here before the rules changed so that the whole world can appreciate how special his talent really was. The rules have impacted that on kickoff for sure."

Even with kickoff rules changing now to make returns more viable, it's possible Hester's standard will remain high.

"I think God made only one Devin Hester," Hightower said. "I don't think we'll ever see another player like Devin Hester again. I know I probably won't in my time. Some people may. Maybe our kids' kids or somebody will, but the impact that he's had on the game and the way he changed the game, it's just when you really go back and study it, it's unbelievable."

Devin Hester's TD Returns

  • 1. Sept. 10, 2006: An 84-yard punt return to lock up a 26-0 victory over the Packers at Lambeau Field.
  • 2. Oct. 16, 2006: An 83-yard punt return TD at Arizona puts the Bears ahead in a comeback win. It's the famous "They are who we thought they were" game, and the Bears won 24-23 without an offensive TD.
  • 3. Nov. 12, 2006: His one field goal TD return. It was a108-yard missed field goal return in New Jersey during a 38-20 over the Giants. Hester made the Giants think he wasn't returning it, then did behind a wall of blockers. He did a good job making the Giants think he would down the short field goal.

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  • 4. Dec. 3, 2006: The first of several returns against the Minnesota Vikings. At Soldier Field, a 45-yard return of Chris Kluwe's punt for a TD after he nearly broke one earlier in a 23-13 win.
  • 5. Dec. 11, 2006: The 94-yard kickoff return in St. Louis at the Edward Jones Dome for a touchdown. It came 13 seconds after the Rams went ahead 6-0. And he wasn't done that day yet.
  •  6. Dec. 11, 2006: Laster in the same game, a 96-yard kickoff return for a TD to lock up a 42-27 victory over the Rams.
  • 7. Feb. 4, 2007, Super Bowl XLI: At Miami, the one that probably made him famous. Hester became the first player to return the opening kickoff of the Super Bowl for a TD, a 92-yarder in a 29-17 rain-soaked Bears loss to the Colts. This return doesn't count on his official total since it was postseason. Tony Dungy had decided early on in Super Bowl week not to kick to Hester, then changed his mind at the last second.
  • 8. Sept. 16, 2007: Early in his second year, a 73-yard punt return TD put the Bears up 14-0 in a 20-10 victory against Kansas City.
  • 9. Sept. 30, 2007: A 97-yard kick return for a TD but it wasn't enough. The Bears lost at Ford Field, the first time in the regular season they lost when he had a return for a TD.
  • 10. Oct. 14, 2007: Hester burns Kluwe again. He starts the scoring with an 89-yard return of a Kluwe punt in a 34-31 loss to the Vikings at Soldier Field.
  • 11. Nov. 25, 2007: Former Bears punter Todd Sauerbrun twice is burned in this game two different ways. Hester took it back a punt 75 yards for a TD in a 37-34 overtime victory.
  • 12. Nov. 25, 2007: Hester tied it in the win at Soldier Field on an 88-yard kick return. Once again he races right past Sauerbrun, who kicks off besides punting—he just can't tackle No. 23.
  • 13. Dec. 30, 2007: Hester returns a punt 64 yards untouched for a TD in a season-ending 33-25 win at home over the team the Bears beat for the NFC title to make the previous Super Bowl.
  • 14. Sept. 27, 2010: Hester went two full seasons without a TD return but broke out of his slump in a night game with a key 62-yarder against the team he made his first TD return against. The Bears won over the Packers 20-17. They hosted the same team in the NFC championship game that year and lost 21-14 after Jay Cutler's knee injury.
  • 15. Oct. 17 2010: An 89-yard punt return at home against the Seahawks but it can't prevent a 23-20 loss. They did go on later to pay back the Seahawks in the playoffs with a win to make the championship game.
  • 16. Dec. 20, 2010: Kluwe vicitimized again. A 64-yard punt return TD gave Hester the record for most return touchdowns on kicks/punts in NFL history. It capped off a division title-clinching 40-14 win on the frozen turf of U of M stadium after the Metrodome roof had collapsed.
  • 17. Oct. 2, 2011: A 69-yard punt return TD put the Bears up 24-10 and they hung on to win 34-29 at Soldier Field over the Carolina Panthers. The return broke the NFL all-time record for career punt return TDs.
  • 18. Oct. 16, 2011: At least it wasn't Kluwe vicitmized again as he took back a kickoff 98 yards instead of a punt. The TD helped trigger a 39-10 rout by the Bears of the Vikings at Soldier Field.
  • 19. Nov. 13, 2011: The Lions punted away from Hester but didn't do it once and he burned them with an 82-yard TD return at Soldier Field in a 37-13 victory.
  • 20. Oct. 20, 2013: Hester's final Bears TD return. He brought it back 81 yards in a 45-41 loss to Washington that later proved huge in keeping the Bears out of the playoffs.
  • 21. Sept. 18, 2014: For Atlanta in a game at the Georgia Dome, Hester takes a punt 62 yards for a TD and breaks a tie with Deion Sanders, his hero, for most regular-season TD returns of all types. Sanders had been a mentor and good friend of Hester's. Hester's final career TD return led Atlanta to a 56-14 victory over Tampa Bay.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.