He already had sped 89 yards with a punt and 81 with a touchdown pass, so Devin Hester did what Devin Hester does … he fastened his helmet (and his jet pack?) and trotted onto the field, ready to go from zero to 100.
Score on the board: Vikings 31, Bears 31.
Time on the clock: 0:04.
He was ready to blast off the pad for a third TD like the car in that TV commercial — zoom, zoom, zoom.
“The game is never over,” Hester would say later at his locker, “until the clock ticks zero, zero, zero.”
It didn’t matter that a Minnesota Viking was about to boot a walk-off field goal. Hester ran out anyway.
Maybe the kick would come up short. Maybe the guy who puts the “go” in Chicago could wait for it underneath the uprights, play possum, pretend to take a knee and then streak 108 yards for a touchdown, the same way he did for the Bears a year ago against the dumbstruck New York Giants.
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After all, there are only two guaranteed ways to keep Mr. Hester from beating you:
Keep the ball away from him.
Or keep him off the field.
For the final play of Sunday’s game at Soldier Field, the visiting Vikings were able to do both. They lined up for a game-winning 55-yard field goal. Ryan Longwell had a lot on his mind, but the one thing he didn’t need to be anxious about was that amazing little No. 23.
Hester was called back to the sideline.
He couldn’t bust a move and win this one. The coaches couldn’t go to their pocket rocket this time. All 11 of the Bears they sent out there had to try to block that kick.
There was nothing Hester could do but stand still and feel a twinge in the pit of his gut as Longwell’s kick trickled over the crossbar for a 34-31 Bears defeat.
All of the good things he did had gone for naught.
“All of the great things that happened in the game are forgotten,” a dejected Hester said.
He stood there patiently, fielding questions about what a great game he had played.
None of it meant a thing to him. His team was in trouble, terrible trouble.
“We’ve lost a lot of games,” Hester said. “What is it, four games now?”
That’s correct, the Super Bowl Bears are suddenly a sad 2-4.
So quiet was Hester’s voice, he was barely audible.
“That’s a lot of games to lose this early,” he said.
Sunday had begun so beautifully. Oh, the sky was gray and the grass was wet, but toward the end of the first quarter, the Vikings made a mistake that NFL teams make and make and make — they kicked a football where Hester could catch it.
He drifted to his left for the punt and made an over-the-shoulder catch.
Then he dipped. He ducked. He darted. He picked up a block from Rod Wilson and the next thing anybody knew, a Bears convoy led by Jamar Williams, Mark Bradley and Ade Jimoh was escorting Hester to the end zone.
It was the ninth kick-return TD — including the return of a missed field goal last season — for a player who is 24 years old.
How does he do it? How much longer can he continue to do it?
“As long as God allows me to,” Hester said. “Tomorrow’s not promised.”
But how can a kid be in the NFL for all of 22 games and already own a Bears record for most career return touchdowns?
Hester, patiently and politely trying to remind everybody that his side lost, said humbly: “I don’t pay attention to the records. At the end of my career, I’ll look back at all that.”
And then, on the second pass catch of his career, to go 81 yards with 1:38 left for a game-tying score?
“If it’s 1 yard or 99 yards, a touchdown’s a touchdown,” Hester said.
What a pity. If not for the final score, this game could have been about as much fun as football gets.
There were spectacular plays galore. Touchdowns were scored from 89 yards, 60, 39, 67, 73, 35, 33 and 81 yards. Smashmouth football it wasn’t.
Could this be Chicago and Minnesota, the brutes of the Black and Blue Division? How could a game between these two franchises turn into 80-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust? This wasn’t a football game; it was a track meet.
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Hester ran wild. Adrian Peterson ran wilder.
Comparisons were apt, but Hester begged off.
He said, “I don’t want to compare myself to him. I’m Devin Hester. He’s Adrian Peterson. He’s got a great future ahead of himself.”
The future of these Bears is not quite so secure.
“We can’t lose anymore,” wide receiver Bernard Berrian said. “Plain and simple.”
Hester left the locker room. He ducked. He darted.
A fan called out: “You’re the best!”
He did what he does. He handled it. Then he was gone.
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