Confident Hester wanted ball with game on the line

SEATTLE – Bears wide receiver Devin Hester was feeling it Sunday in Seattle, so much so that he provided quarterback Jay Cutler with some unsolicited suggestions. 

“He wanted the ball a lot today,” Cutler said after the Bears’ 25-19 comeback victory at Qwest Field. “He was always in my ear [saying], ‘I’ve got it. Give it to me.’ Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn’t. But whenever we called his number, he came up big for us.”

That was especially true with the game on the line. With the Bears trailing 19-17, Hester caught a short slant pass from Cutler and turned it into a game-winning 36-yard TD with 1:52 remaining.

“They brought a little bit of pressure, which we were anticipating,” Cutler said. “It was press man [coverage]. He ran a great route. I put it a little bit out there. He made a heck of a catch and run. He makes one guy miss and it’s a touchdown, and that’s what he did.”

Hester also caught a 36-yard touchdown pass in the season opener against the Packers.

“He’s a threat,” said coach Lovie Smith. “When he gets the football he can score at any time, and that’s what happened. He’s caught the ball well. He’s running great routes, and he should get better and better each week. Devin is a No. 1 receiver and hopefully we can put him in positions to make plays like that.”

Hester had five receptions for 76 yards in Sunday’s win. His diving 22-yard grab over the middle set up Johnny Knox’s 7-yard TD, which gave the Bears a 14-13 lead early in the third quarter.

But it was Hester’s 5-yard catch in the second period that probably best demonstrated the progress he’s made at the wide receiver position. On third-and-five, he snared a high pass, spun around with a defender on his back and reached the ball out while being tackled, picking up the first down by a few inches.

“He’s showed me something since I first got here,” Cutler said. “When I first got here, they said  he didn’t know the playbook, he couldn’t get out of cuts, and he had trouble catching the ball, and all that’s been false since Day 1. Since I first arrived here, he’s worked as hard if not harder than everybody in that room to get ready for the season. He’s really driven.”

Cutler was reminded of that when Hester was asking for the ball Sunday afternoon.

“Whenever you get in a rhythm and you feel you’re dominating, you want the ball in your hands,” Hester said. “I was telling him, ‘I think I can get a shot on  this guy with a slant.’ He came to me when it counted and I stepped up and made a play, and that’s basically how it went down.”



(chicagobears.com)