Giants hope to Dodge Hester's return

Matt Dodge said he isn’t having nightmares about Devin Hester. In fact, he says, he welcomes the “challenge” of facing the Chicago Bears’ dangerous return man.

Sure he does. He’s not the one that will have to tackle him (he hopes).

Now his job is to make sure that no one else has to tackle him either.

“Yeah, the best strategy isn’t to gang-tackle him,” the rookie punter said. “It’s to just don’t give him a chance to be tackled.”

That’s pretty much what Tom Coughlin said earlier today when he told the press that his advice to Dodge was “Kick it out of bounds. Don’t let him have the ball.”

Not surprisingly, Dodge said he spent much of practice today working on kicking directly towards the sideline - - the first time, he said, that he “really” focused on that during a practice since joining the team. Given his early season struggles, and the fact that he’s no Jeff Feagles when it comes to directional punting, it’s a good bet that even if he aims for the stands there’ll be at least a punt or two that ends up in the field of play.

That means Hester - - who had a 62-yard punt return for a touchdown against the Packers on Monday night - - will get a chance to embarrass the Giants the way he did in 2006 when he returned a missed field goal 108 yards for a touchdown. And that will be quite a challenge for the Giants’ beleaguered special teams.

“He’s one of those guys, man, he’s like water,” said linebacker Clint Sintim, who is part of the punt coverage team. “He’ll find the crease. You’ve just got to do your best to try to hold him back a little bit. You’ve got to be extra aware of where he’s at.

“He can’t harm you if he don’t have the ball. God forbid that he gets it, we’ve got to make some tackles. We’ve got to do our best to contain him and minimize his impact.”

The good news for the special teams is that their captain, Chase Blackburn, will be back this week after missing the last two games with a sprained knee. And he believes that a tough challenge like Hester could be exactly what the struggling unit needs.

“I 100-percent agree with that,” Blackburn said. “When you’re facing adversity and things aren’t going right, you really want a challenge. And sometimes it takes that for everyone to come together and really gel as a unit.”

Click here to order Devin Hester’s proCane Rookie Card.



(nydailynews.com)