Devin Hester: Holding out and highly quotable

You could give Ron Turner an uzi, a machete, numchucks (sp?), an AK-47, a missile launcher, a switchblade and grenades, and he would melt them into a giant ball and roll it at your feet.

 

the fun part to me is that it doesn't really matter what hester's worth. he's got a fascinating bargaining position. the bears said they gave urlacher his money because he outperformed his contract. hester certainly out performed his.

the best part -- you could make an argument that tommie harris, not brian urlacher, is the bears best defensive player at this point. might not be right, but it wouldn't be a silly discussion.

there is no question hester's the closest thing that team has to offense. how insane is it that a kick returner has scored the most touchdowns in the last two years for a team that's been to the super bowl in that time?

add to that the rare holdout that few see coming, even if it was for the day, and this is the most entertaining story of the summer. let this drag on for another month, and let's get brett favre somewhere else so we can get more space for quotes from devin hester.

 

Painfully obvious to close observers:

(in terms of value to defense)

1. Tommie Harris
2. Lance Briggs
3. Brian Urlacher

When healthy ---- which is never ---- Mikey Brown fits in there ahead of Urlacher in his current state of health.

He is NOT the player he was two years ago.

 

Hester gets his money.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/cs-080727-devin-hester-chicago-bears-contract,1,3720532.story

 

I'll agree with you that Urlacher is not the player he was two seasons ago, but he still put up some solid numbers last year, despite battling neck/back problem that he had surgery on this off season. I would make the argument that Briggs is as good as he is because Urlacher gives him that room by getting the blocking attention. Very similar to when Rosevelt Colvin left the Bears after putting up similar seasons to Briggs but was unable to replicate them in New England.
Not going to argue about Harris, but I would flip Briggs and Urlacher, especially if Urlacher returns to his old form after his surgery. If you're going to use the injury excuse for Mike Brown, then I think it should be equally applied to Urlacher who mostly played through the pain last year.

 

Well for that money he better add 1,000 yards receiving to his resume this season. Definite over payment. I know a lot of that is bonuses, but shit. He better be the No. 1 guy on the outside. Would suppose this gives Rex the inside track for the starters job with his ability to launch the deep pass -- although far too often into a safety's waiting arms.

 

All fair points. And I'd LOVE to see Urlacher return to his pre-back-pain, 2006 form.

Of course, all that does is make the defense more elite, and make more glaring management's willingness to squander a championship window created by a dynamic defense due to spectacularly crappy offense.

 

Can we get a thread title update, pretty please?