State Your Case: Why Devin Hester Should be 'Slam Dunk' for Canton

(EDITOR'S NOTE: On the eve of the election of the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame's Class of 2024, Chicago sports historian Jack Silverstein makes a compelling case for former return specialist Devin Hester's election).

Since the start of the Pro Football Hall of Fame semifinalist era in 2004, each of the 86 players who were first-ballot semifinalists either reached Canton as a modern-era candidate or is a candidate for the Class of 2024. Ten such players are finalists now, meaning that for the majority of this year’s class, the question of induction is not "if."

It’s "when."

One of those is Devin Hester, whom voters honored in historic fashion two years ago as a first-ballot finalist, the first pure returner to reach the semifinals … much less the finals … much less in his first year of eligibility. For three years, voters have done right by Hester – making him a finalist each time -- and they can continue to do right when they meet this week by electing him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024.

The reason is simple: There are not five finalists with more worthy resumes. I’ll say that again: The reason to elect Devin Hester to Canton is that there are not five better candidates on the ballot.

By any measure, Hester has a Top Five resume. While snap counts are a reasonable critique of a special teamer’s case in his first or second year of eligibility, the relevance of that critique dissolves with each passing year. A third-ballot induction for Hester, the undisputed G.O.A.T. at a position older than the NFL itself, is a reasonable delay of a player whose numbers and impact at another position would have him in Canton in Year One.

Even a cursory look at his case shows why this should be his year. In seven key criteria for a Hall of Famer, he outshines nearly every other finalist. Take a look:

Greatness compared to his position. You could put Hall of Famers into four tiers: players in the running for the greatest ever at their position; players in the running for the greatest at their position in their era; players who peaked as the greatest at their position for a period of time and everyone else. Of the 15 finalists, Hester is the only one called the greatest ever at his position. Julius Peppers, Antonio Gates, Patrick Willis and Jahri Evans are all in that second tier. Andre Johnson is the best of that third tier.

Look again at that distinction. Torry Holt is one of my favorite non-Bears, and I always thought it spoke so highly of him that he carved out an AP1 in 2003 when Randy Moss, Terrell Owens and Marvin Harrison were at their peaks. But I never considered Holt the best wideout of his era. Jared Allen had a great run, but he’s not the first pass-rusher you think of in his era. At best, he’s in a group with Peppers, Michael Strahan, DeMarcus Ware and then J.J. Watt.  And Willie Anderson peaked as the best right tackle in the game at a time when GMs paid left tackles more. In 2001, when Cincinnati’s left tackle job was open, the Bengals declined the 26-year-old Anderson’s request to double his salary to move from RT to LT. Instead, they signed 34-year-old Richmond Webb to play LT.

Now look at Hester. There’s a near consensus around Hester as the G.O.A.T. returner, even among his fellow return legends. Deion Sanders and Dante Hall have called him the greatest. Gale Sayers, Brian Mitchell, Mel Gray and Josh Cribbs have all said he belongs in the Hall. To reach Canton, a pure returner shouldn’t have to be the greatest ever, but that’s what Hester is. He’s the only finalist considered the greatest ever. Even the Talk of Fame “Judge & Jury” article on the greatest tight end ever yielded not one vote for Antonio Gates.

How far ahead is Hester from his competition? He had the most special teams' touchdowns ever with 20, followed by Brian Mitchell with 13. Tom Brady has the most passing TDs ever with 649, followed by Drew Brees at 571. If Brady was as far ahead of Brees as Hester is of Mitchell, Brady wouldn’t have 649 TDs.

He’d have 878.

Statistical dominance. In December on Windy City Gridiron, I published a story a day for one week, looking at different aspects of Hester’s statistical case. Among the incredible stats:

• Hester is the only player ever with five special teams' TDs in a season, something he did twice — with six.
• Hester and Billy “White Shoes” Johnson were the NFL’s All-Century returners, and if you remove Hester’s two BEST seasons — 2006 and 2007 — he has as many return TDs (8) as White Shoes had his entire career,
• Hester set or tied a Bears’ or NFL record on all 20 of his return touchdowns.
• Hester scored at a historic clip: a TD every 32 returns, good for 10th all-time, and the only player in the top 10 with more than 250 career returns. He had 610.

The rest of the finalists have statistical dominance, but they tend to boil down to one or two stats: 159.5 sacks for Peppers, 23 more than Jared Allen; 116 receiving touchdowns for Gates; Willis’s five All-Pro first teams. You could write one really good stat article for each of them. Two would be pushing it. Five would be fluff.

Complete returner. When you start sorting Hall-of-Fame candidates, you start looking at how many aspects of their position they could play. Hester’s G.O.A.T. credentials are rooted in versatility: he is the clear-cut G.O.A.T. punt returner, but he was also an all-decade kick returner. Not everyone can do that. Mitchell, one of the few who did, once boiled down the difference in skillsets: A kick returner needs a sturdy body with breakaway speed, while a punt returner needs a shifty body with elite mental processing.

That was Hester. He is the only player to lead the NFL in both kick return yards and punt return yards twice each. In 2010, he led the NFL in yards per punt return at 17.1 and would have led the NFL in yards per kickoff return at 35.6 if he had a few more returns.

Cordarrelle Patterson has the most kick return touchdowns ever with nine, but has fewer career punt return yards (nine) than Hester has punt return TOUCHDOWNS (14.)

Complete career. Many great returners end up only having a few great seasons. It’s a hard position to sustain success. Hester was different. Dante Hall is one of the greatest returners ever, and his credentials are largely in two seasons. Devin Hester had three Dante Halls: 2006-2007, 2010-2011 and 2013-2014. In fact, Hester’s 2006-2007 was the equal of Hall’s whole career; 12 return touchdowns to 12 return touchdowns.

In Hester’s first career game at age 23, he scored on a punt return. On the final game of his career at age 34, he set his career high in postseason return yards, with 194 yards --all on kickoffs. It was more yards than the postseason career high of each of the past five first-team all-decade kick returners.

Big game importance. That was hardly Hester’s first big playoff game. In Super Bowl XLI, the one man Tony Dungy took out of the game wasn’t future Hall-of-Famer Brian Urlacher. It was Devin Hester. When have you ever heard of game-planning a Super Bowl around a returner? Desmond Howard never got that respect, as his famous kick return touchdown in Super Bowl XXXI was late in the third quarter.

After Hester scored on the opening kickoff of Super Bowl XLI, Dungy took the ball out of his hands. It was the key coaching decision of the game and helped Peyton Manning win his first Super Bowl.

Impact without the ball. That Super Bowl is a perfect example of what the term “game changer” means when people aren’t grinding it into a cliche. Hester changed individual games. He changed the game itself, with punters leaning more on the Australian-style kick to negate Hester’s explosiveness. He changed the way teams drafted. He gave the Bears an eternal field-position edge, with December, 2012, an example. The Bears were first in the league in starting field position at the 25.9-yard line despite Hester not having a return touchdown that season.

Most of all, he changed the way teams coached. In Week Three of 2007, Hester’s second season, the Cowboys sent the opening kickoff out of bounds on purpose. They kicked out of bounds and gave up the 40-yard line! Announcing the game, John Madden and Al Michaels complimented the coaching decision.

Which brings us to snap counts. Returners get unfairly dismissed for low snaps rather than getting credit for their impact per snap. In 2006, for instance, on a Super Bowl team, Bears’ running back Thomas Jones had 35 percent of the Bears’ total touches with 17.5 percent of the yards. Without touching the ball on offense or defense, Hester had only 10 percent of the touches but was second to Jones with 16 percent of the yards.

When a returner is on the field, he is the kicking team’s sole focus. Thus what returners do with the ball is harder. Devin Hester was like Lawrence Taylor; you had to account for him on every play.

Emotional experience. Many of the 15 finalists are mostly a collection of numbers, and that’s a perfectly fine reason to be in Canton.

But the elite of the elite have more than just numbers and more than just impact. They also have emotional resonance. And when Devin Hester was in the NFL, the six most exciting words in sports were “Devin Hester, back deep to return.”

Yes, Devin Hester was a specialist who had fewer snaps than position players. But so what? You don’t judge the Mona Lisa with a tape measure. The Class of 2024 should start with Peppers, one wide receiver and Devin Hester. In a class allegedly lacking “slam dunks,” electing the undisputed greatest ever at his position is as slam-dunk as it gets.

Jack M Silverstein is Chicago’s sports historian, a Pro Football Hall of Fame analyst, a contributor to the Talk of Fame Two “Judge & Jury” series and a member of the Not In the Hall of Fame PFHOF committee. Visit him at his 1990s Bulls newsletter at readjack.substack.com.