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12 Nov 2008
Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
For two years, Devin Hester was an incomparable weapon on the football field, the greatest return man in NFL history. In 2008, he has basically disappeared. Has anybody noticed?
Hester had six return touchdowns in 2006, and six return touchdowns in 2007. He has zero so far in 2008. The Bears ranked number one in our special teams ratings in both 2006 and 2007. This year, they are 21st. Where Hester is concerned, the Bears are 15th in kick returns and a dismal 30th in his real specialty, punt returns.
Is Hester still such a weapon that he changes the opponent's kicking strategy? Commentators still talk as if he is, and there have been games this year where the other team obviously avoided kicking to Hester. (The Week 7 game against Minnesota is the best example.) However, most teams have stopped treating Hester as if he were far superior to the other good kick returners in the NFL, guys like Ellis Hobbs and Josh Cribbs and Ted Ginn.
Last year, the average kickoff to the Bears went just 54.3 yards. That was the lowest figure in our database, more than four yards below the second-lowest figure (the 2000 Bengals, 58.5). This year, the average kickoff to the Bears has gone 63.5 yards. That's not even the lowest figure in the league -- it ranks third, behind Cleveland and Miami.
Hester's longest punt return of the season so far is just 25 yards. Last year, Hester had eight returns over 25 yards, including four touchdowns. Chicago has only six punt returns of 10 yards or more, and three of those aren't even by Hester -- they are by Nathan Vasher. The average punt to Chicago is going more than two yards longer than the average punt to Chicago in 2007, showing that opposing punters are also less afraid to kick it deep to Hester this season.
It isn't like the Bears aren't getting any value from Hester. He's a starting receiver now, and he's gained 311 receiving yards with two touchdowns and 4.1% DVOA. Is all that time at receiver tiring him out so he can't be at his best in the return game? Did the Bears trade the greatest special teams weapon of all-time for a league-average wide receiver? Or is just evidence that Hester is subject to the same year-to-year swings in value that plague all the other return specialists?
After Hester's rookie season, we warned people not to expect another huge year in 2007. Return touchdowns are ridiculously inconsistent from year to year. Back-to-back seasons with two or more return touchdowns are rare. Hester went out and had back-to-back seasons of six. So after two years, we said, "Hmmm... maybe Hester is something new, something special -- a return man so good that he can consistently take it to the house every year."
We may have been right the first time.
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Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
I've wondered the same thing--where'd he go? I mean, the few times Reggie Bush has been back on punt returns he's gotten more "Hester" treatment than Hester himself. (Of course, Minnesota thought that it wasn't very necessary)
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
My mate texted me waxing lyrical (or as far as that is possible in a text message) about how amazing Bush's returns were. My immediate reaction to all three was that Hester hasn't seen that kind of space on a return since the St Louis game in his rookie year. That was the first time he returned kicks in the NFL and the last time anyone tried him out to see if he was any good.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
He's averaging 21.5 Yards per Kick Return this year, compared to 21.7 Yards per kick return. He's also on pace to surpass the number of 20+ kick returns he had last year, and equal the number of 40+ yard kick returns. Given that we're talking a half season of work, is it so inconceivable that he'll rip off two big kick returns and end up where he did last year (actually, his average would probably go higher than last year)?
For Punt returns, you're talking about a sample size of 15 punts.
As for the kick distance, we know that this stuff depends a lot on how scared the opposing team proves to be. One big kick return, and teams will be squibbing again.
All that being said, it's quite possible that Hester is the next Dante Hall (loses the edge on his acceleration and becomes a mediocre return man). I said this last year too: Cribbs>Hester. Cribbs isn't that fast, but he's a field position machine.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Why are we talking about such a small sample size? Why has Nate Vashar been back there at all?
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Just to give everyone an idea how ridiculous small a sample size of 15 punt returns is, when all you're measuring is TDs:
The 95% confidence interval for true population portion for a guy scoring 0 TDs in 15 tries is {0,0.20}. Meaning that we can be 95% sure that Devin Hester's true % of punts returned for TDs is bewteen 0 and 20%.
For his career before the current year, he's returned 7 out of 89 for TDs (7.87%). So to be 95% sure that Devin Hester's punt return for TD % has gone down this year, you would need him to return 0 out of 45 punts for a TD. (interval: {0,0.0787})
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
That's not quite what a confidence interval means. A 0-20% confidence interval means that, if we sampled the population numerous times, the true mean would fall within 0 and 20% 95% of the time. That's slightly different in uninteresting, but important, ways.
However, your larger point is correct.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
When writing for a wider audience, there is no difference between the two explanations given. Except that I believe mine would give more practical significance. However, I'd like to hear why I'm wrong that my explanation is better for the audience, if I am.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
I think that the FO audience can be held to higher standards and given a technically correct definition. Maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, I apologize for the unintended harsh tone of my reply, and I reiterate that your larger point is correct.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Vasher was back there when Hester was injured. Hester hurt his ribs against Carolina in week 2 and missed the rest of that game as well as the entire game in week 3 against Tampa Bay.
In addition to the comments from others about the different ways other teams are kicking to Hester to break up his rhythm and the changes in the blockers, I think Hester has looked tentative on his returns all year. He has hesitated on almost every return. In the past, any hesitation by Hester seemed to be for the purpose of setting up his blocks. This year, it seems like his hesitation is because he doesn't know where to go and where his blockers are going to be. This may be related to the disruption of his rhythm by the kicking team and the changes in the blocking unit. But it seems like he is thinking way too much back there rather than just reacting.
However, as someone else noted, he almost broke two returns last week (one kickoff return and one punt return).
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Perhaps it would be a good thing to look at something like "return yards since last on-field action." I am not sure, but it would make sense to me that playing receiver drains some of his energy for the return game. In his first two seasons, did he return balls for more yards after an opposing 5-minute drive, a 7-minute drive, a 9-minute drive, or at the beginning of a half, than he is this year? If he is playing receiver, the opposing team goes 3-and-out, he had maybe two minutes to rest up for the return. What is the correlation of "time sidelined to return yards?"
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
FWIW, he nearly broke both a kickoff return and a punt return in last Sunday's game.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
If you look at all of the all-world returners the NFL has had recently (Dante Hall, Eddie "Whatchu talkin 'bout Mr." Drummond, Jerome Mathis, Terrence McGee, Pac Man), the pattern has been 2-3 years of all-world production, followed by a sharp decline to merely very good. You might argue that none of those guys were in Hester's stratosphere, but I think Hall definitely was. As hard as it was to envision Hester tailing off, it was equally hard to envision Hall and company tailing off, and it's equally hard to envision Josh Cribbs tailing off in the next couple of years. Still, historical precedent is pretty strong.
If you want perhaps a better historical comparison, try Rick Upchurch. In his first four seasons, he caught 18, 12, 12, and 17 balls. During those four seasons, he averaged 12, 14, 13, and 14 yards per punt return. He was a 2-time all pro returner, and the two years where he wasn't were arguably even better than the two years that he was (his best all-purpose yardage total by 450 yards came in one of the non-all pro seasons, and the only time in his career where he led the league in punt return yards came in the other). He scored 6 return TDs over that span. In 1979, his catch total jumped all the way to 64, and his yards per punt return dropped to 10. In 1980, it dropped to 9.5, and he lost kick return duties. In 1981, it dropped all the way to 7. Granted, he did make another all-pro team and set a career high in yards per punt return in 1982, but that was on only 15 returns, so it was in a much reduced role.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
It's all three things. First, the inherent inconsistency in returns. No one ever should have been expecting six a year in the first place even if he had done it twice. Second, he looks terrible after he catches the ball in a number of ways. He legitimately looks slower and slower to get to full speed. He's taking too much time initially to do something with the ball and he's trying to run around instead of upfield. Much of this can probably be attributed to the third issue, which is the blocking seems far worse than normal. I think this is where most of the blame lies. Sure, he's still making the same dumb decisions and secures the ball as carelessly as ever, but the evaluation shouldn't be solely on Devin, but on the unit as a whole. He can't outjuke and outrun everyone all by himself. He does need help. He got the credit and the blocking didn't when he was successful and he's getting the blame and the blocking isn't now that it's not successful (much like the credit/blame game in RB discussions that ignore o-line quality), but that's a flaw in the analysis and the discussion, not necessarily with Hester's performance. If you expand the analysis to the whole unit instead of focusing solely on Hester, maybe the cause of the lack of production would be less mysterious.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
True. I'm not a CHI fan, but who have they lost on ST ? They lost Ayanbadejo, who was, I think, a key player, and maybe others that I'm (And most of us) not aware of. Maybe it is irrelevant (I doubt that), but it should, at least, have been mentionned.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Teams may be kicking deeper to Hester this year, but they still aren't kicking it to him like they do for just about every other return man in football. He rarely is given space to run into (if ever) and the adjustments the Bears have had to employ in response to the constant diet of wedge squibs and so forth are probably hurting the blocking. Also as someone has pointed out, two or three missed tackles and it all starts again. If one of Detroit's players hadn't given up a personal foul on a horse collar last week then you probably wouldn't be writing this article.
Just about every ball Hester gets on kick returns is kicked to land in front of him or ballooned into the air to allow the coverage team to get downfield. I would suspect that the biggest cause for the difference on kick length is due to the Bears now using the smallest wedge in modern NFL history. Instead of the usual parade of fullbacks, tight ends and back up linemen the Bears are sending out guys like Garrett Wolfe, Craig Steltz, Rashied Davis, Adrian Peterson and an assortment of other undersized guys who are secure ball handlers, the biggest guy in the wedge is McKie and he is probably only 240lbs - way smaller than the biggest guy on any other team in the league. Understandably teams recognise that simply kicking the ball to a backup RB or WR on the 35 yard line isn't going to get much done and kick to make the ball bounce instead (the PFP research article can't have helped in this regard either - cheers FO you broke Devin Hester ;)). It may be that the Bears are not choosing the lesser of the available evils, and should put guys like Idonje and Davis back in there. Losing Ayanbadejo can't have helped all that much either, especially when Idonje's increased time at DT might be the reason he isn't seeing the field on kickoffs.
As for punt returns I don't care what the stats say (Iknow this really isn't the place to say that) I have watched every single punt to Hester for the last few years and the lengths teams have gone to this season to stop him getting the ball are ridiculous. I used to make sure I saw the returns to see what Hester was going to do, now I watch to see how the opposition is going to try to keep the ball from him this time (not nearly as fun). When teams do punt to him properly it tends to be in areas of the field where the decision on what to do is made for him (ie fair caught inside the fifteen or when punting out of their own endzone).
The last point I would make is that teams do seem to go to great lengths to keep the Bears special teams from getting into any sort of rythm. Even teams with players like Cribbs don't get the variation in approaches to the kicking game that the Bears receive (not that this constitutes an excuse, they do need to start playing better). It may be that they need time to adjust to the new players in the scheme, and the different schemes. It may be that it takes Hester a bit longer to adjust to playing a prominent role on offense as well. I would say that in the grand scheme of things it looks like a foolish decision to not give Ayanbadejo the money he wanted. He only received $100k more in bonus money from the Ravens, but Angelo didn't like the fact that he was shopping his Bears deal around. Personally I don't blame him it was the biggest contract that he will ever receive which makes it his one chance at security, I know that you don't want players doing that kind of thing in general but for a role player like Ayanbadejo you might want to make an exception. It does seem a little silly to shell out so much cash to a return man and refuse to give a little more to the guy who was blocking on all 13 TD returns.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
The drop off in the blocking is probably the key (and is compounded by the Bear defense's inability to generate field position). Off the top of my head, the only person I can name that is gone is Brendan Ayanbadejo - but if memory serves, he's a multi-year Pro Bowler for special teams and could almost always be found somewhere near where Hester broke through. While it may seem silly to suggest one person makes that big of a difference, it may not be as strange as I think (and given that every week I seem to hear a new name called for the Bears special teams, it may be more than just Ayanbadejo).
There's also the possibility of scheduling issues - last year Denver let Hester beat them, and this year Hester didn't get to return a punt against Minnesota in his first matchup against them. That could be 3 TDs right there.
I will believe Hester has lost a step when someone manages to keep up with him down the field, rather than catches up to him when a pass is underthrown. Until then, I think the seeming lack of acceleration is more closely related to the lack of somewhere to run.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Could it be that he's not getting as many opportunities in the punt return game simply due to the fact that the Chicago offense isn't pathetic this year?
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
according to Pro Football Reference Hester has fumbled 17 times while handling the ball a total of 160 times. That is an incredibly high fumble rate. If that stat is accurate it seems that Hester is almost as likey to help the other team score a TD as he is to score one himself.
Is it just me or are punt and kick return TD's way up in the last few years?
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Punt returners have a very high rate of fumbling anyway (at least most of the decent ones seem to). I suspect that the reason for this is any muffed or touched punt counts as a fumble. Punt returners also have a very high rate of recovery of their fumbles (not all fumbles are created equally).
I haven't checked for this year but up until the start of this season Cribbs fumbled on punt returns at a similar rate to Hester, with a similar rate of recovery.
I suspect that if you looked at the league average of fumbles against scoring on punt returns every single PR man in league history would have the kind of negative score that would cause you to wonder why coaches don't just let them bounce and get downed. Looking at fumbles lost would give a radically different answer.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
"Is it just me or are punt and kick return TD's way up in the last few years?"
A large part of that is due Minnesota's coverage units :S
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
Actually, it's a lot more than 160 touches ... 246 through the 8th game this season. Remember he only has offensive statistics through two seasons, but fumbles and returns through 3.
Also, to his credit, he has only 2 fumbles in 67 touches this season. But still, yeah, that's a really high fumble rate when you look at some other players (Drummond with 10 in 403 touches, Randy Moss with 13 in 862!, Brandon Jacobs with 11 in 533).
And no, it isn't just you. In the last 11 seasons, there have been at least 10 KR TDs 10 times (and we're likely to make this 11 of 12). In the history of the NFL prior to 1997, there were only 9 seasons with 10 or more KRs.
Three of the four highest totals came in the last six seasons: a record 25 last season and 17 in 2002 and 2004. (1998 had 18.)
Punt return TDs aren't up as dramatically as KR TDs. They may have peaked in 2002 (20), and while we've seen double-figure TDs 14 of the last 17 seasons (counting 2008, with 10 to date), those years are more common in the past. The third-highest single-season total, 14, first happened in 1952.
Interestingly, we've seen similar percentages of KR and PR TDs in the last 10 years (1999-2008, so really 9.5 seasons): 137 of 551 KRs (24.8%), 130 of 580 PRs (22.4%). And I guess from that perspective, we've seen progressively more return TDs than in the past.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
I think they are a few issues, as I posted a few weeks ago, I think fatigue plays a factor. Second, I think he is still injured. Finally, they lost a number of special teams players and he has blamed that on poor blocking (could just be an excuse).
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
The Bears have also been selling out for the block on some punt returns, not doubling the gunners on quite a few returns and not putting anyone on them at all on some others. I think part of it had to do with them wanting to make a big block and change the horrendous field position they were in, but I saw this a lot during the Titans game, loading up the line for the block instead of focusing on taking out the gunners and creating some space for Hester. what I really didn't like was the few times they faked the all-out block, and then tried to retreat quick enough to still block everyone when they only had one guy or even nobody on the gunners to start out. They got a whole lot of nothing out of that.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
for interest sake - fumble rates of great returners
Name, fumbles, total chances, pct
Josh cribbs 12 279 4.30%
Devin hester 17 246 6.91%
Rick Upchurch 27 659 4.10%
Billy Johnson 24 798 3.01%
Deon sanders 19 436 4.36%
Dante Hall 19 858 2.21%
Eric Metcalf 53 1802 2.94%
This was just a quick list of guys I could think of who were great returners. It doesn't break down fumbles in terms of when they fumbled - it's certainly possible that a kick or punt returner is far more likely to fumble than a runner or receiver. Indeed Hester's rate has declined this year as he has handled the ball more as a receiver and runner.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
I wasn't trying to argue that Hester is in fact sure handed, even Bears fans have to admit that he at least has issues in this regard. I once watched Hester stick out a hand and bat a ball that was going past him down to the ground, there was no one near him and he calmly picked the ball up and had a decent return. It wasn't really a fumble, but will have counted as one. Yes he has ball security issues, but more punt returners do than people think.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
I think people have about covered it. He's been hurt and that affected him even after he was able to play again, teams are still doing weird things especially on punts (you don't see a lot of long punts against the Bears, teams either angle them or kick skyballs), and their blocking hasn't been as good either, on kickoffs in part as a response to the fact that the upbacks ended up returning a bunch of kicks in the past, so there are now more serviceable returners than real blockers in the wedge. Ayanbedejo was really good on special teams, they definitely miss him.
Re: Whatever Happened to Devin Hester?
I agree with the person that said he spends more time running from sideline to sideline than he does running downfield. One of the reasons for this is poor blocking. Another is fatigue. He even said in an interview that he's thinking too much rather than just running. As an avid Bear fan I'd like to keep thinking that he's just playing possum to get the other teams to relax and kick to him normally but I'm afraid that's probably not the case. The team that I love put themselves in a position, by not giving Bernard Berrian more money, where they needed help at WR. Every time he catches a home run from Orton, I try to think of it as "this for that" because it's obvious he can't do both well. One of the greatest experiences as a Bears fan that I've ever had other than 1985 was watching Devin return the opening kickoff for a TD in Super Bowl XLI. We went on to lose that game to the Colts.I guess you just have to treasure those moments because they are few and far between. I think everythings just the way it's supposed to be. Peace.
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