There was a time when the Chicago Bears special teams was the envy of the entire NFL. It got to be so good at times that teams actually had to game plan how they’d play Chicago. Needless to say many fans miss those days, having lived through the past few years of general mediocrity. Then again that’s just how life in football can go.
ESPN has conducted a research experiment of late to look back through the past 30 years in the NFL. They wanted to breakdown the 30 best offenses and 30 best defenses. Chicago failed to crack the first list and somehow had only one unit on the second. Surprisingly it was the third phases of these lists where they’d shine the brightest.
According to the numbers, Chicago had no fewer than four of the 30 best special teams units since 1987.
Chicago Bears special teams changed the game
#Bears ranks:
2010 28th
2011 15th
2006 6th
2007 2ndhttps://t.co/YjTHNQs8TI— Brad Biggs (@BradBiggs) June 21, 2017
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One could say that the sheer dominance of the Bears special teams during that era changed the game forever. The NFL changed their kickoff rules not long after. Special teams value was dampened in the name of player safety. There’s truth to that, but it’s still such a shame. There can be no doubt that those units made football exciting to watch. More so than any other special teams maybe in history.
The best of the bunch, the 2007 unit, was the perfect example of the machine they’d built.
“What’s better than a Devin Hester season with five touchdown returns? How about a Devin Hester season with six touchdown returns? Hester had four punt returns for touchdowns and a remarkable average of 15.5 yards per return, plus he added two more touchdowns on kickoff returns. But this was no one-man show. The Bears were third in field goal value, with Robbie Gould hitting 31 of 36 opportunities, and the Bears blocked three punts, four field goals and an extra point. (Demonstrating the somewhat random nature of such plays, the Bears blocked a field goal in the first four weeks of the season, then didn’t do so again the rest of the season.)
By the way, this is the seventh team on this top 30 coached in some way by Dave Toub. He was the coordinator for the four Chicago teams on this list as well as the 2013 and 2016 Kansas City Chiefs, and he was John Harbaugh’s special-teams assistant on the 2001 Philadelphia Eagles.”
Hester and Toub show
There were plenty of prime time players in that successful run. Robbie Gould was obvious. Underrated punter Brad Maynard and long snapper Patrick Mannelly. Then there were Johnny Knox, Corey Graham and Brendon Ayanbadejo all going to Pro Bowls for their contributions. However, anybody could see that the greatness centered on two men: coordinator Dave Toub and return man Devin Hester.
Toub was and still is considered the great special teams mastermind of the age. Nobody has broken down coaching that phase to such a science like him. He’s had success everywhere he’s been and remains a hot head coaching name for it. Of course the superstar will always be Hester. People thought they knew what great return skill looked like. Then they saw him. His speed, his quickness, and his vision were on levels that just didn’t seem human.
He broke the NFL record for most return touchdowns in a career at the age of 28. It took him just five seasons to break a mark the previous holder had built across 13. Giving him to a man of Toub’s coaching prowess? It was a match made in football heaven and Bears fans got to live it each and every Sunday.
