Thread: Hester contemplating retirement

Go ahead and retire then and we'll happily use the money from your bloated salary for someone who WANTS to play for the Bears.

I understand he may be dissapointed but come on........

He doesn't have a bloated contract JPosh, he's getting paid like most low end vet wr's.

Originally Posted by Riczaj01

Butka, I agree, but I think it was fair to give Hester at least 3-4 years to learn how to be a WR since he really wasn't one in college. I do think he showed that he could be a 4th-6th wr though. He's not great but in some situations he could be good(not everydown though). I also undstood why they did it, b/c teams were already punting OoB's or squibbing to not let him have the ball, so to allow him to use that explosive speed why not try and get him the ball as a WR?

I think it speaks more to how poor Drake is that it took this long to try and develop him though. And he's not worth keeping on the rost for his cost.

Drake has not been able to develop a receiver in his tenure here. I think that could be partially to blame for Hester's failure to transition to a receiver.

Originally Posted by Riczaj01

Butka, I agree, but I think it was fair to give Hester at least 3-4 years to learn how to be a WR since he really wasn't one in college. I do think he showed that he could be a 4th-6th wr though. He's not great but in some situations he could be good(not everydown though). I also undstood why they did it, b/c teams were already punting OoB's or squibbing to not let him have the ball, so to allow him to use that explosive speed why not try and get him the ball as a WR?

I think it speaks more to how poor Drake is that it took this long to try and develop him though. And he's not worth keeping on the rost for his cost.

I'm with you there. It was a worthy experiment, and Drake definitely deserves some blame. I guess I just had a problem with the last two seasons (and mostly this season), where it was clear that he's just lacking the natural ability to be a WR, yet, they kept talking him up and putting him out there. The opportunities could have been given to someone else. I also think they may have laid off pursuing other options in free agency and the draft in past years because they were sold on him.

I haven't been on the board much the last year, so it won't be on record here, but I've been saying that most of these short screens that Hester gets should be going to Earl Bennett. He's shown the ability to accelerate, make people miss, and fight for yards after the catch, where Hester hasn't really shown that outside of kick returns. I was somewhat proven correct yesterday, thanks in part to a terrible angle by Delmas (or whoever the Lions safety was). None the less, that probably would have been a 20 yard gain with a proper pursuit angle that I'm not so sure Hester would have been able to read properly. Those opportunities that Hester had could have been given to Earl Bennett (when Earl was healthy of course).

I could go on with Hester (not saying you disagree Ricza, I'm just on a tangent about Hester here). He's terrible at tracking deep balls. He'll catch a pass wide open and make an unnecessary spin move because he's unaware of his surroundings. It really does blow your mind with his innate ability to know what's going on with kick returns that he's unable to sense some of these things on a normal play (maybe it's the fact almost everything is in front of him with the kick return).

Butka, I thought he was an average 4th-6th wr this year. The problem this year was that he was he was forced into being a 2nd or 3rd b/c of injuries. I think if he got 4-5 shots a game, maybe 10 plays total he would be fine. But when he's out there 20-30 times it's to much and he's not going to help. I think the Hester package was for just that but b/c the O was so bad that the package was never really able to be used.

Hester is only really good on curl's/posts where he's going to stop see the ball come into his hands and be in space(behind LB's in front of DB's) so that he can use his elusivness to move in space and gain extra yards. Think back to his first TD in the first few weeks, it was a pretty catch, and a tough one. Or the one where cutler went over the LoS but completed a short pass to Hester who was in space and got into the redzone. Get him out there for those type plays, give him 4-5 shots and I think he can help you, but when inj's hurt he cannot move up and there is the real shortcoming.