It is hard to think that anybody can be considered the best ever with just 27 games under their belt, but that is the type of praise Bears return man Devin Hester is getting these days. Here are just some of his numbers.
Not counting his 108-yard field goal return or his return in the Super Bowl, Hester has 10 kick off and punts for TDs. He is currently 4th on the all time list behind Brian Mitchell (13), Dante Hall (12) and Eric Metcalf (12) all of whom took in the neighborhood 150-230 games to achieve what Hester has done in 27. With two this past Sunday he passed Deion Sanders, Desmond Howard, Billy Johnson, Dave Meggett, Bobby Mitchell and Rick Upchurch.
He also passed Gale Sayers who also held the Bears franchise record of 9 until this past week.
If that weren't scary enough it gets better. Using the same numbers Hester is averaging a return for a TD every 13.1 return tries. That is tops all time ahead of Sayers (14.8). If you also threw in the SB TD and his missed FG return that number would be at 12.08.
It is hard to think that any team would continue to kick to him, though that has a lot to do with our good our offense it at the time, but the career numbers people are lobbing are 40-50 return TDs for a career. That is just hard to wrap your head around.
And just as an FYI to Fox Sports when listing the players of the game:
You might want to mention the 10 return opportunities for 232 yards, 2 TDs.