Looking Back at the Bears Punt Return from Week 3
I would bet by now almost everyone has seen the video of the amazing punt return the Chicago Bears pulled off on Sunday. Devin Hester successfully faked out the entire Green Bay Packers punt team, which lead to a touchdown by Johnny Knox. However, the play was called back due to a holding call. The play has received wide-spread attention, mainly based on the controversy. If the hold was not called, the Bears would’ve trailed 27-24 with about 50 seconds left. There would have been plenty of time to onside kick and move into position for the game-tying field goal. After spending a day or so poring over this video, I believe I can successfully break down what exactly happened.
If we take a look at this video, the “hold” occurs at the :02 mark. If you happen to look at the top left corner of the screen, you can see a Bears blocker reach out and grab Packers gunner Jarrett Bush. It’s very brief and not at all bad, but Bush sells it like no other. Also around this time, you can see the punt is angled to the right side of the Bears return unit. Typically, punt gunners react to the movement of the return man and Hester begins to move up, which causes the punt team to move towards him
At the :06 mark, you can see Knox catch the ball on the far sideline and begin to run up field. At the :08 mark, Bush makes a gesture with hands that can be perceived two ways. He’s either mad that the play fooled him or he’s begging for a holding call. Right after this gesture, you can see the flag land on about the 18 yard line. By this time, Knox is flying down the sideline with only the punter to beat. Knox scores but the play is called back. Watching this play live, I had no idea what happened.
The first thing I thought when I saw the flag was that Hester called for a fair catch. By rule, the receiving team can not advance a ball after the fair catch signal unless it touches the punting team first. After watching Hester, it is clear that he makes no such signal. He merely signals for his blockers to get out of the way, which freezes the Green Bay punt team. This means the only other call could be a hold.
I’ve watched this video almost 100 times by now. After the game, Mike Pereira, the former vice president of NFL officiating, said the hold could only be seen in the live shot. He is correct. The replays that Fox showed did not show the part of the play where the hold supposedly took place. A hold is defined by an offensive player reaching out and grasping a defensive player to slow his progress. By rule, what happened is BARELY a hold. I believe the refs said it was Corey Graham who was the offending player. To me, it looked like Graham placed his arm on Bush’s shoulder and it did not slow his progress down. Bush was also out of the play, which means a hold should not be called because the play was not directly affected. However, Bush acted like a professional and pretended like he was jerked by Graham’s arm.
Even as a Packers fan, I admit this call with very questionable. This eliminated the comeback chance for the Bears under dubious circumstances. The punt return decoy was one of the best plays I have ever seen. I’m sure it was a thing of beauty to see in person. It is unfortunate that this play will be known as something that might have been. Hester did a tremendous job of drawing all the attention to himself when the ball was at least 20 yards away from him.
Hopefully this post has been helpful for those who were still confused by the play. The play was one of the best things I’ve witnessed and I wonder if the Bears will ever try this again.
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