He had a kick off return, and a punt return for TDs.
If kickers could kick it through the endzone, they would. It’s 70 yards to the goal line. That’s a fucking bomb.
IINM, Hester also had a fumble on one return.
He now has 10 returns in a season and a half. The NFL record is 13. DH is ridiculous.
If a kicker could kick every kick out of the end zone, every kick would be kicked out of the end zone. No kicker can come close to doing this. They pushed the kickoff back to the 30 from the 35 because too many kicks were going deep in the end zone, and the league wants returns. If kickers get better, they’ll keep pushing it back.
[hijack] To Bears fans, the sweetest part of the game was watching Sauerbrun whiff on one tackle, and then get hurdled trying to make another one [/hijack]
Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz recently dealt with the ‘squib it to Hester’ strategy. They found that in general you’re better off just kicking it deep. Snips from their Week 10 and Week 12 DVOA Rankings columns (bolding for those who just want to skim):
I was astounded to see that Hester is a mere 14th in the league in kickoff return average.
I think the answer is situational. If you are up by 5 with :45 left, what do you fear more, Hester running back a punt, or Grossman leading a 70yd TD drive?
If indeed the net difference is 4.3 yards, I think it absolutely makes sense, ESPECIALLY with proven dangerous return men. As a coach I think I would trade up to 10 yards of field position. I accept that TDs are rare, but I don’t think long returns are all that rare, and I think I would rather see a team earn those yards against my defense instead of a big gash on special teams.
As for getting the ball back on a fumble, that is an interesting case. Fumbles in this kind of scenario are rarely returned, usually they just get fallen on, so the chance of you getting a TD out of the deal are small. Therefore in order to justify risking a punt return for a TD, I’d estimate you would have to get twice as many fumble recoveries vrs return TDs given up to come out ahead in the long run. Course Im just pulling that # out of my ass, but the point is getting the ball with great field position is not nearly as good as getting a TD.
One important point in favor of kicking away from Hester is that he plays for the Bears, and their offense is … not so good. As a defense, teams will probably feel that they will tend to stop Chicago from scoring, all things being equal. Therefore, they should play to reduce variance, not necessarily expected value (yardage).
Say Indy is about a 6 point favourite over Chicago. If nothing crazy happens, they can expect to win by 6. If they kick to Hester, crazy things might start to happen, like fumbles and return touchdowns. So kicking to him means they are more likely to win by 13, if he fumbles, but also more likely to lose by 1, if he runs one back.
If anybody taped the game, I heard that Shanahan gave him a real butt-chewing after one of them. So I think he probably was told to play keepaway, but didn’t.
Your view is oddly TD-centric. A fumble recovery on a punt is huge - not only do you get the ball back after your offensive series sputtered out, but you get it 40 yards down the field. That’s huge. You seem to be dismissing the value of that unless it results in a TD in the very same play.
I didn’t dismiss it. I agree it is huge, just not nearly as huge as actually getting a touchdown. You recover the fumble, you still have to execute on offense to get anything out of the deal. Give up a TD return and they get 7 points without ever even putting their offense on the field. Which is why I said it should be about a 2-1 fumble to TD ratio. I figure 2 fumble recoveries under those circumstances would be worth roughly 7 points.
Everyone is forgetting: even when someone runs the kick back, that’s only an advantage to the extent that it represents points in the bank, as opposed to points that might happen. But offenses tend to score points, so to some extent, all the runback did was shorten the time frame.
Thus, for example: Let’s say someone runs back 5 kicks in a season for TD. Well, let’s say that that player’s team scores touchdowns on around 40% of its possessions. The advantage is only 3 TD’s, plus the reduction in time taken to score.
Now, if the return man also tends to run back for large yardage, then that’s something to consider, because punting to him results in potentially worse field position. But in the case of Hester, his return stats, when you take OUT the TDs, are lousy. In other words, if he breaks it, he’s golden, but he’s not gonna get you much on average. So he’s not really a threat over an above his potential for a return.
Coffin corner punting was all the rage at one point. If it isn’t the rage any more, it’s likely because someone wise with stats pointed out that it wasn’t working, when compared to other options. Likely, that’s because directional punting isn’t easy to do. It requires that you take your time, increasing the chances of being blocked. It usually requires a lower trajectory, again, increasing the chances of blockage. And, it isn’t very accurate; that old oblate spheroid thing again. 
Also, there is a new method of punting that kills the ball without much of a bounce…most punters now are practicing this. Pittsburgh’s rookie Dan Sepulveda was supposedly a master of this in college, and from what I’ve seen it’s true. Instead of punting a ball so that is spirals for max distance, he kicks it so is spins like a kickoff.