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Courtney Cronin, ESPN Staff Writer
By the time Devin Hester returned to his native South Florida for the biggest game of his life in Super Bowl XLI in Miami, the Chicago Bears‘ 24-year-old rookie was well on his way to becoming the best return specialist in NFL history.
The former second-round pick, who starred for the Miami Hurricanes from 2003-05, had already earned first-team All-Pro recognition and Pro Bowl honors by the time the Bears advanced to play the Indianapolis Colts on Feb. 4, 2007. Hester returned a career- and league-high 47 punts with three resulting in touchdowns in 2006. He also returned two kickoffs for touchdowns and scored after returning a missed field goal 108 yards versus the New York Giants.
The Colts had plenty of film to study as they prepared for Chicago’s most dangerous weapon. They had seen Hester run a punt back 83 yards for the go-ahead touchdown to cap off a 20-point comeback win over the Cardinals. They witnessed him rip past the St. Louis Rams twice in the same game to notch kickoff return touchdowns of 94 and 96 yards, respectively.
Yet after the Bears won the coin toss inside a rainy Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens and elected to receive, the Colts sent the opening kickoff right into Hester’s grasp.
It took him all of 14 seconds to sprint from where he fielded Adam Vinatieri’s kickoff at Chicago’s 8-yard line into Indianapolis’ end zone, 92 yards away, all while watching himself on the videoboard as he recorded the only TD return of an opening kickoff in Super Bowl history.
The letdown from an eventual 29-17 loss to the Colts did little to fade the play that accentuates Hester’s Hall of Fame résumé. His impact will be enshrined in Canton this weekend as the first player elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame primarily as a kick returner; a player who sparked one of the most iconic moments in NFL history.
Devin Hester really started the Super Bowl with a house call 🏃💨
One of the greatest kick returners ever turns 40 today.
(via @NFLLegacy)pic.twitter.com/dfnDfTke3C
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 4, 2022
For two weeks in the lead-up to Super Bowl XLI, the Colts had put together a game plan for Hester that revolved around him not touching the ball. While the Bears’ special teams units were the most explosive in the league, the Colts ranked 30th in kickoff coverage and 32nd in punt coverage. Here is how that plan ultimately yielded to one of the most exciting plays in Super Bowl history.
Darrell Reid, Colts defensive end: “They weren’t a dangerous offensive team. They had [wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad], they had [wide receiver] Bernard Berrian. But coverage, return, they had the best special teams unit in the NFL. Bar none. And the best returner, probably in NFL history.”
Tony Dungy, Colts head coach: “We were kicking to the corners, we’re bouncing the ball, we’re squibbing it, we’re punting high, or we’re punting out of bounds. We said, ‘He’s not going to be a factor. We think we can control their offense.'”
Vinatieri: “Most of his returns for touchdowns were punts, not necessarily kickoffs [Hester returned three punts and two kickoffs for TDs in 2006]. We knew for sure the game plan was don’t punt the ball to him. Try to punt it 40 yards, 45 yards, out of bounds. Sacrifice some distance but do not let him get the ball in his hands.
“We thought about it the other way and didn’t want to sacrifice a ton of yardage on kickoff stuff, so since we’ve got a couple of our starters in there, let’s try to pin him in a corner and see if we can overload that side and try to minimize his return. We practiced that all week long. It wasn’t even like we were worried to kick a touchback. We were more concerned about hitting it over in the corner, and if he catches it at the 2- or 3-yard line but it’s really close to the sideline, then we could try to box him in a little bit.”
Reid: “The game plan was we’re not going to kick to him. He’s too dangerous.”
Days before the game on Feb. 4, 2007, Dungy changed his mind.
Dungy: “One of our chaplains gave a chapel service before the game and talked about David and Goliath and said, ‘The reason David was successful is he wasn’t afraid. All the other Israelites were afraid of Goliath.’ So I started thinking, am I putting fear into our guys’ hearts? Am I playing this wrong? We can’t be afraid of Devin Hester.
So, at the last minute, I changed my mind and said if we lose the toss, we’re going to kick off. We’re going to kick it to him, and I want you to go down and pound him. And when we knock their champion down, that’s going to send a message just like David.
“I talked about it with Russ Purnell, our special teams coach, and of course he said we can cover, we can do this. We’ll get him in the Super Bowl. Everybody wants to have their moment. No one wants to go out there and just say, ‘Hey, we weren’t part of this, or we didn’t contribute.’ So it was mutual, but at the end of the day, it was my decision.”
Reid: “Two or three days before the game I rallied the guys to convince Coach Dungy. I said, ‘We can handle him. We’ll be fine.’ You could tell [Dungy] felt uneasy about doing it, but he’s like: ‘OK, I trust you guys.'”
Dave Toub, Bears special teams coordinator: “Every game that we had, it was always a question of who’s going to kick to him, who isn’t going to kick to him. We knew that they had talked about not kicking to him, but we always assumed as a staff that they were going to kick to us in the Super Bowl just because it’s the Super Bowl.
“That’s what I told them Saturday night. I said, ‘They’re going to kick the ball right to us.'”
An unexpected storm moved into the Miami area on game day and dumped nearly one inch of rain over the roofless Dolphin Stadium throughout the evening. A crowd of 74,512 watched Hester and the Bears kickoff return team trot onto the field to receive the opening kick just after 5 p.m. ET.
John Gilmore, Bears tight end: “As a rookie, his confidence when he took the field was unreal. We took a lot of pride in blocking for him. Special teams wasn’t a chore. It didn’t feel like you were being punished for not being a starter. Any time you stepped on the field with him in the return game, it was like, ‘Man, we can take it to the house.'”
Chris Harris, Bears safety: “This is pre-smartphones. I remember seeing all these flashes click when the ball is being kicked off. That was unreal.”
Gilmore: “Running out to the game from the locker room felt surreal. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was like the movies. There were Roman candles being shot up and all the embers were coming down in slow motion. It totally had me bugged out. I got to the sideline and it was like, ‘Whoa, what just happened?’ And then we win the coin toss and we’re receiving. Talk about an adrenaline rush.”
Tony Medlin, Bears equipment manager: “I said if it goes in the end zone, get that ball for him. That’s what was in my mind because it was never done, had never been done before.”
Vinatieri: “Honestly it never entered my mind that he would run a ball back for a touchdown. It really didn’t. I’ve had two of them in Super Bowls. I kicked one to [Green Bay Packers wide receiver/return specialist Desmond Howard] and he ran it back for a touchdown. So it happened to me before, but at no time was I thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s going to happen again.’
“I wasn’t fearful when we did it. I thought, we’ll put him in the corner, we’ll tackle him inside the 25 and we’ll feel pretty good about ourselves. And that’s absolutely not what happened.”
Hester [to ChicagoBears.com]: “The words that came out of my mouth [when he saw the ball headed his way] were ‘Holy s—.'”
Hester received Vinatieri’s kick at the 8-yard line and ran up field to the 20. The closest a Colts defender would get to tackling him was safety Marlin Jackson, who was inches away from Hester, who accelerated away from his grasp. The Bears’ wedge consisting of Gilmore, Israel Idonije and Gabe Reid created a gap for Hester to blow past the first wave of Indianapolis defenders as he neared the Super Bowl logo and began sprinting parallel to the Bears’ sideline.
Jeff Joniak, play-by-play voice for WBBM: “When he made the cut to the middle of the field, I just knew it. That’s what he did. He outran everybody every time he did that. The middle of the field was golden for Devin. They didn’t want to kick it down the middle to Devin, but they seemingly were thinking about it too much, and if you think you’re beat. If they kick it down the middle of the field, I knew he was going to score.
“I kept talking about him being in his backyard [on the broadcast]. I believe I said, ‘From Riviera Beach to the biggest stage in sports, Devin Hester, you are ridiculous.'”
Harris: “I remember hitting a guy, it was probably around the little Super Bowl logo. I chipped this guy and kind of saw [Devin] flashing by. And when I turned around and I saw he was out and all the Colts white jerseys chasing him, I said, ‘All right, I’ve got to go meet him.’ So I just took off on a dead sprint because I knew he was scoring.”
Vinatieri: “Once he got past our first wave of guys, then we have a safety on each side and me in the middle. I knew I was too far away from him. If I could get close enough to him to at least slow him down, maybe the pursuit could get to him. But he juked the piss out of me, too. That’s the thing about Devin. When he has a little bit of room, with that vision, he’s unstoppable.
“When I dove and didn’t touch him at all, I was like ‘damn.’ It’s funny because after one play, my jersey is dirtier than anybody’s on the field.”
Hester [to ChicagoBears.com]: “There was too much open field, so I knew right then and there [after Vinatieri’s attempt]. It wasn’t a situation where I was pinned to a sideline and had the sideline working against me. We were in the open field, so I knew he wasn’t going to get me.”
Joniak: “I remember [Colts linebacker] Matt Giordano was tracking him down and Devin looked up. I was wondering why he was looking up later to learn that he was looking at himself on the scoreboard. Matt caught him and just tripped him up and he tumbled into the end zone for the touchdown.”
The Bears’ momentum would continue on the next drive as they opened a 14-6 lead, but the Colts took control in the second quarter for a 16-14 halftime edge.
Toub: “We started the game with a touchdown and we thought it was going to be an ass-whipping. Really didn’t end up that way, even though we came out and we got a pick right after that, too. We thought we had all kinds of momentum at that point and then obviously it ended up shifting on us.”
Dwight Freeney, Colts defensive end: “I think the one thing about that was it was the first play of the game. That actually worked in our benefit because if it was anything later than that, like in in the fourth quarter, it would be like, ‘Oh my God!’ It would be a hard thing to recover from.
“But we had four quarters to recover and put that behind us. So, for us it was kind of like, ‘All right, we tried. Shame on us and then we can keep it moving now.’ Because in the end, we knew offensively we were going to score more than seven points, and I knew defensively we were going to keep them from scoring.”
Vinatieri: “Their entire team is fired up and excited. Now when they kick off to us, their defense is going to be coming a million miles an hour because the momentum is already on their side … but the fact that there was still 59½ minutes left in the game, we knew it wasn’t over by any means. We just knew that this is the guy that will wreck the game for us if we don’t prevent that. And obviously just watching that first play was proof of that. Let’s not kick him another ball.”
Gilmore: “They got smart and decided to kick it to John Gilmore. I had two returns in that game. That’s what happens when Devin takes the opening kickoff for a touchdown.”
ESPN’s Stephen Holder contributed to this report.