I guess there’s some discussion of whether Devin Hester belongs in the Hall of Fame. He’s scored 20 touchdowns on returns, an all-time record.
I got the numbers out. What I see is two outstanding, Hall-of-Fame seasons, back in 2006-07. He scored 12 touchdowns on returns in those seasons. That includes the really cool return of a missed field goal for a score. You can also toss in a Super Bowl kickoff return touchdown against the Colts – he did it on the biggest stage.
Since then, however, his work becomes far less compelling. The Bears tried to turn him into a wide receiver, and that failed. Since 2008 he’s returned only one kickoff for a touchdown. The rest of the league in the same time period has returned 92 kickoffs for touchdowns. So nothing special there.
Since 2008, Hester has been an above-average punt returner, but not an insane difference maker. He’s got 7 TDs for punt returns since 2008. The rest of the league in the same time frame averages 2.6 punt return touchdowns.
If discussion Hester, we should also compare him to Brian Mitchell, another one of the great returners. One area to look at is fumbles. We also like to point out how many touchdowns a guy scored – things he did to help his team win. But we should also look at fumbles. When a player loses a fumble on a kickoff or punt, it invariably results in the other team scoring 3 or 7 points. With fumbles being a lot more common than touchdowns, it might be strategically better for teams to prioritize returners with good ball security, rather than trying to find explosive playmakers who might hit a big returner twice a year. This was the thinking last year in the Broncos moving away from Trindon Holliday.
On the fumble front, Mitchell is a much better returner than Hester. Hester has fumbled 31 times in 497 career returns (if you counted each fumble as minus-4 points, then the negative value of his fumbles (31 x 4 = 124) would be almost equivalent to the positive value of his touchdowns (19 x 7 = 133). Mitchell fumbled only 2 more times than Hester, despite handling over twice as many kicks (1,070).
Ultimately, if you want to put Hester in the Hall of Fame, you have to circle back to those two great seasons in 2006-2007. Those were something special, and I think it’s enough to put him in the discussion. But it would not be enough in my eyes to get him in front of players like Terrell Davis (whose few great years were even better).
Here are the two charts, with league totals (TD), the average of the other 31 franchises in that season, and Hester’s production in that season.
| HESTER / PUNT RETURNS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | TD | Other 31 | Hester |
| 2006 | 15 | .29 | 3 |
| 2007 | 17 | .39 | 4 |
| 2008 | 16 | .42 | 0 |
| 2009 | 10 | .29 | 0 |
| 2010 | 13 | .42 | 3 |
| 2011 | 20 | .52 | 2 |
| 2012 | 18 | .58 | 0 |
| 2013 | 13 | .39 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2 | .03 | 1 |
| Total | 122 | 3.5 | 14 |
| HESTER / KICKOFF RETURNS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | TD | Other 31 | Hester |
| 2006 | 9 | .23 | 2 |
| 2007 | 25 | .74 | 2 |
| 2008 | 13 | .42 | 0 |
| 2009 | 18 | .58 | 0 |
| 2010 | 23 | .74 | 0 |
| 2011 | 9 | .26 | 1 |
| 2012 | 13 | .42 | 0 |
| 2013 | 7 | .23 | 0 |
| 2014 | 1 | .03 | 0 |
| Total | 117 | 3.6 | 5 |
—Ian Allan