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The first surge of electricity came in his first regular-season game, on just the fourth touch of his NFL career. Opening day in Green Bay, 2006. Early fourth quarter. Chicago Bears rookie Devin Hester positioned himself near the 20-yard line and waited for his gift, a right-down-the-middle 50-yard punt from Packers rookie Jon Ryan.
This was the initial glimpse into how little Hester needed to be special. And what little he needed he got.
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To Hester’s right, teammates Todd Johnson and Brendon Ayanbadejo wrangled Packers gunner Ahmad Carroll to create space. As Hester backpedaled and caught Ryan’s kick at the 16, he had breathing room and saw a sliver of daylight.
He started right, veered back inside, then hit the accelerator near the 30-yard line.
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More than 16 years later, he has never forgotten all 18 seconds and 84 yards of the adrenaline rush. Hester can still feel that instant of decisiveness, that sprinter’s blur, those ahead-of-the-pack finishing blocks from Jason McKie and Charles Tillman. (Yes, there was also that thrill of sticking it to the Packers.)
“Right after I crossed (into) the end zone, I was like, ‘This is something I’m going to be doing for a long time,’” Hester told the Tribune last fall. “Yeah. I just knew it. That first game, when I took that one back I said, ‘Oh, yeah. This is something I’m capable of doing for the rest of my career. And I’m going to make a big impact doing this too.’ ”
That right there, the ability to break a game open with a snap-of-the-fingers moment was so obviously in Hester’s DNA that the sizzle of his wick seemed audible whenever he went back for a return — from that first game at Lambeau Field onward.
Six years after Hester played his final NFL game — as a 34-year-old in the playoffs with the Seattle Seahawks — the argument has been made, and convincingly, too, that no player in league history has made as big of an impact as a returner as Hester did over 156 regular-season and seven postseason games. His 20 career regular-season return touchdowns established an NFL record that might never be touched.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame named him to its NFL All-Decade Team as a punt returner for the 2000s and then as a kick returner for the 2010s. In 2019, a panel of former players, league personnel and media selected Hester as one of 100 players for the NFL’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. And in his first two years of eligibility, Hester was a finalist for the Hall of Fame.
But the grand finishing touch to the Devin Hester experience will have to wait at least another year as his Hall of Fame approval was again delayed Thursday night. That became official during the NFL Honors extravaganza at Symphony Hall in Phoenix when the Hall revealed its Class of 2023 featuring modern-era inductees Joe Thomas, Darrelle Revis, DeMarcus Ware, Zach Thomas and Ronde Barber. Senior candidates Joe Klecko, Don Coryell, Chuck Howley and Ken Riley also earned their Hall passes.
Hester, however, was again left out and left behind, left to wade through another 12 months of anticipation and worry, of excitement and dread to see if his bid for a gold jacket and a bronze bust will ever become reality.
So what does it all mean? And what’s next?
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Hester admittedly was heartbroken a year ago when his chance to become a first-ballot Hall of Famer fizzled. “I was frustrated. I was upset,” he said a few months later. “Because at the end of the day, when you look at the Hall of Fame you don’t categorize a guy for what position he played. You categorize a guy for what he brought to the game of football. That’s how I want to be viewed.”
His disappointment might be even more pronounced this time.
Hester’s Hall of Fame case, presented to the 49-member selection committee the last two years by longtime award-winning football writer Dan Pompei, is straightforward. Pompei has asserted how Hester mastered his role as a returner and did things at a level on special teams that no one in the history of the league has done.
Hester’s impact on games, Pompei has emphasized, transcended the amount of time he was on the field. His production was undeniable. His performances passed the eye test. His ability to change games — and the game itself — was felt and has been emphasized continually by all those who shared a field with him.
But the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection process also comes with quirks, namely an annual limit on the number of modern-era finalists who can be inducted and enshrined. That number is five. Which means only five players each year reach the “yes or no” stage of the voting process, a phase in which they must garner at least 80% approval to gain entry into the Hall of Fame.
So the trick for Hester will be eventually gaining enough momentum and meriting the requisite support in a given year to crack that top five.
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In January 2022, Hester made the top 10 but was left just outside the velvet ropes as the selection committee instead ushered through Tony Boselli, LeRoy Butler, Richard Seymour, Sam Mills and Bryant Young.
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This year, that same committee felt more impressed with the achievements of first-year candidates Joe Thomas and Revis plus Ware, Barber and Zach Thomas. That’s the way this cycle unfolded.
Still, there has been a buzz since Hester’s candidacy began in fall 2021 that he is a “when not if” Hall contender with several members of the selection committee confident he would have at least 80% approval if his “yes or no” vote were to be taken right now. But that’s not how this machine works. And the chore of trimming a massive list of more than 120 Hall of Fame nominees to approximately two dozen semifinalists and then 15 finalists to be narrowed first to 10 and then to five is far more demanding and difficult than most outsiders would care to consider.
In pockets of the committee, there remains slight resistance to Hester’s specialist role with some contending that, while he was absolutely a great player, if he were a no-doubt Hall of Famer he would have used his talent to make a more profound and lasting impact on offense or defense.
Still, that opposition isn’t unwavering or overwhelming.
(For what it’s worth, after being drafted as a cornerback, Hester’s explosiveness with the ball in his hands led to his transition to offense, which netted him 291 touches, 3,427 yards from scrimmage and 17 more touchdowns.)
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The question within the process never has been about whether Hester was great at what he did. It has been about a) whether his contributions are truly Hall-worthy; and b) whether his credentials put him high enough in the pecking order among so many other generational stars.
Of the other finalists to experience similar feelings of rejection Thursday night, former Cincinnati Bengals offensive lineman Willie Anderson has been through some form of this disappointment 10 times now. Additionally, former Dallas Cowboys safety Darren Woodson first cracked the nominee list in fall 2011 and has been a semifinalist six times. He remains on the outside looking in.
Zach Thomas, meanwhile, pushed through to Canton, Ohio, on Thursday in his ninth year of Hall eligibility and his fourth cycle as a finalist.
Through a Bears lens, Super Bowl XX MVP Richard Dent was a Hall of Fame finalist for seven years before finally getting his call to Canton in 2011.
Mike Ditka was 16 years removed from his playing career when he was enshrined in 1988.
The Bears’ most recent Hall of Fame inductee — offensive tackle Jimbo Covert — received his approval into football’s most prestigious fraternity 28 years after his career ended when he was pushed through as a senior candidate within an expanded 20-member class assembled to commemorate the NFL’s 100th season.
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So yes, the waiting game can be patience-testing.
From a specialist standpoint, legendary Raiders punter Ray Guy was a finalist seven times over 17 years but never made it as a modern-era nominee. His induction as the Hall’s first punter came in 2014 — via a senior committee vote.
The frustrating part for Hester is that it’s nearly impossible to find a player or coach who competed with or against him or tried to stop him who doesn’t immediately check the “yes” box when asked about his Hall of Fame worthiness.
Former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, who sits on the 49-member Hall of Fame selection committee, is partially responsible for allowing Hester his most iconic moment, the 92-yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff of Super Bowl XLI. Dungy spent nearly two weeks vowing not to let Hester put his fingerprints on that Super Bowl and guided his coaches and players accordingly in their preparation for the game. But ultimately Dungy had a late change of heart, wanting to test Hester to show belief in his Colts players while teaching them the value of attacking the biggest game of their lives with fearlessness.
It’s just that Hester attacked better. And when that flashbulb-popping opportunity fell out of the misty southern Florida night sky and into his mitts at the 8-yard line at Dolphin Stadium, he was just looking for that sliver of daylight and that moment to hit the gas.
He found both.
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“I saw a lot of dangerous returners during my 30 years in the NFL,” Dungy told the Tribune in 2019, “but Devin was a guy where you knew from probably Week 5 of his rookie year just how truly special he was. And he was still able to do that year after year, over and over. He was so dangerous. He’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime guys. And I’ve always thought that if you’re the best at what you do, if you’re the dominant player at your position, you need to be in the Hall of Fame.”
A year ago, former Colts general manager and team President Bill Polian joined that chorus, insisting Hester’s exclusion from the Hall’s 2022 class was far from a snubbing and that his day in the spotlight was coming. “He was spectacular,” Polian told the Tribune. “If you watched Devin Hester play, you came away with a feeling of just ‘Wow!’ And he did those ‘Wow!’ things every week.”
Chris Tabor, a special teams assistant with the Bears for three of Hester’s eight seasons in Chicago, knew firsthand how “Wow!”-worthy Hester was as well as how hard he prepared.
Tabor also remembers how terrifying it was to prepare against Hester and the helplessness that arose even with a fully focused and committed coverage unit doing its job to a high level. It was Hall of Fame-level anxiety.
“When you see a great returner (now), who’s your first comparison to? What name do you go to first?” Tabor said.
It’s Hester, of course.
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“Therefore that answers the questions,” Tabor added. “I’m going to leave it at that. Argument’s over.”
Tabor was with the Cleveland Browns in 2014 when he and coach Mike Pettine agreed to send Billy Cundiff out to try a 60-yard field goal on the final play of the first half against the Atlanta Falcons. Why not, right? Then they saw Hester trotting into the end zone, just in case of a miss.
Sure enough …
Even with the Falcons calling timeout to negate Cundiff’s first attempt, just the sight of that kick falling short and into Hester’s arms near the back of the end zone, made Tabor swallow hard.
“Did I get nervous on it? Absolutely,” he said. “Did we stay out there and try it again? Absolutely. Did it end up short (again)? It did.”
The kick that counted dropped into the painted “O” in the Falcons end zone where Hester snagged it.
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“And out came Devin,” Tabor said. “I was standing on the other side saying ‘Oh, boy, here we go!’ ”
Hester walked forward three steps, then turned on the jets. He got outside to the right, hit top speed and found the open field. Across midfield, after Hester cut back inside, Cundiff slowed him down just enough for guard Joel Bitonio to make a touchdown-saving tackle after a 75-yard return.
Hester pounded the football. He knew he had been just an inch or two away.
On the jog into the locker room, Pettine grabbed Tabor.
Holy smokes! Did that get your heart racing?
“Absolutely,” Tabor said.
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That was Hester, always a heart-racing experience waiting to happen. Opponents lost sleep in the weeks they had to prepare for him. Teammates felt energized by the contagious swagger he always emanated on the field.
And on top of all those signature moments that wound up in the end zone — the Super Bowl XLI return; the 2006 game-winner in the “They are who we thought they were” miracle in Arizona; the kickoff/punt return touchdown daily double in a win over the Broncos in 2007 — what truly captured the attention of opponents and teammates were the 2-yard returns that turned into 26, the heart-stopping sequences in which Hester seemed corralled but snuck free, the Tom-and-Jerry chase sequences that were as entertaining as they were improbable. Or even those fear-filled, field-position-changing boots into the first row of the stands just to keep the football far, far away from Hester.
That entire experience is difficult to sum up with a statistical report or a montage of video clips. But from that first game of his career, Hester left a lasting impression and kept adding to it, strengthening the case that he was not only one of the best ever at his craft but also a Hall of Famer.
His induction is still likely to come. It just won’t be this year.
