The cameras were off, the lights were down and Deion Sanders was cut loose from the various electronic tethers that tied him to the NFL Network. Thursday night had tilted to Friday morning, and the man who once called the Georgia Dome his house still wasn’t done signing over the deed to Devin Hester.
“I don’t care about records, I care about people,” Sanders said off the set where he works as analyst, and from where he had just witnessed Hester break his NFL record for touchdown returns.
“And I love that kid, man. I love him like he’s my son, like he’s my brother. I love him that much.”
Yes, something much more than a mere blowout of the Tampa Bay Bucs had just occurred. Something that seemed to be causing certain famously brash Hall of Famers to go all soft and weepy.
Ever so rarely do the many facets of a player’s life intersect as perfectly as they did Thursday for Hester, like those of a crown jewel.
Hester had been a Falcon for three games, a 31-year-old free-agent escapee from Chicago, yet he utterly owned the joint this night. What began as a football game ended as a one-man biographical play in four acts.
This is your life, Devin Hester.
On the other side of the field was Lovie Smith, the coach and salesman in Chicago when the Bears drafted Hester in 2006. He was the one in charge of convincing a college defensive back to pack up his skills and move to offense, if only in a very limited basis. Not an easy sell because after all, Hester’s idol, Deion Sanders, was a cornerback.
Now the Bucs’ head coach, Smith reaped this bitter harvest: On a 20-yard reverse, Hester scored the first rushing touchdown of his career. And more seems to be coming as the Falcons invent ways to put the ball in his hands. Whereas the Bears cut him completely out of the offense last season.
In the stands was Hester’s mother, Juanita Brown, a pastor back home in South Florida who always sends her boy off to the game with a prayer. Her Internet provider must have really upgraded her bandwidth because the message seemed to reach the Almighty in record speed this night.
And in the movable NFL Network set Thursday night was Sanders, Hester’s spirit guide through the NFL and the man who became the second most productive return specialist that very night. As Einstein built on Newton, as Netflix supplanted Blockbuster, Hester trumped Deion. In the same building where Sanders’ retired number hangs. Who writes this stuff?
Little wonder that after he finished that record 20th touchdown return — 62 yards in all, leaving a poor, hapless punter grasping at his vapor trail — Hester found the Falcons bench, draped a towel over his head and had a good cry. An almost overwhelming collection of people and events had their confluence at the Georgia Dome that night.
The game itself made for ruinous TV, a 56-14 rout that only the sleep disordered could stay with. The postgame, actually, was far better. That’s where Sanders and Hester unashamedly leaked a few tears on air; that’s where the emotion lived.
They used to call Sanders Prime Time, for all the dash and flash he displayed during his peak in Atlanta, San Francisco and Dallas.
And around the Bears they used to call his protege “Anytime,” as in, “That Hester can break one anytime.”
It was hardly a surprise the two would click. “Both of us are Florida boys. Kind of the same upbringing. Speed guys. Athletes, return men,” Sanders said.
With Sanders own career winding down, he had heard during the broadcast of a Miami game about this Hester kid, then a defensive back and electrifying return man who had tried to pattern himself after Sanders. This is someone I need to meet, Sanders decided. He got Hester’s number through former Hurricane Ed Reed.
In great detail during his interview with the NFL Network crew after Thursday’s game, Hester remembered that first phone call. In anticipation, he had taken his phone with him to a team meeting before a North Carolina State game. As it vibrated in his pocket, Hester left the room. Said he had to go to the bathroom. Instead, he arranged to meet his idol later.
“Shows you what kind of kid he is. You would think he would bring several of his teammates (just to show off). He came alone,” Sanders said.
Hester had a story to tell. His father died of cancer when Devin was just 12. His mother spent a long time recovering from a serious automobile accident. Football was his answer to a lot of questions that came with a difficult upbringing in Palm Beach County’s Riviera Beach. Sanders saw a lot of himself in Hester.
They became so close that Hester even spent parts of two summers training with Sanders before he left Miami for the NFL.
While it took Hester no time at all to turn around the Bucs punt and usher it to the end zone, Sanders crammed in a short lifetime of visions during the run.
“I was sitting up there seeing him play with my kids years ago,” he said.
“I was seeing me and him jogging around my property, getting in shape.
“I remembered the things he’s gone through, when people nay-sayed and doubted him (as a one-dimensional returner).
“I saw his wedding planned before my eyes and how beautiful it was and how proud I was of him. Saw his kids, his mother. So many things we’ve shared that flashed before me.”
On the set in one of the most unusual postgame interviews ever, Hester and Sanders both choked up as they traded saccharine sentiments.
In tribute to Sanders, Hester high-stepped into the end zone, one hand cocked stylishly behind his head in a classic Prime Time pose. And you know, Hester told him, I wanted to find you and give you the ball. But, no, someone appropriated it for display in Canton, Ohio.
“You’ve always been there for me, man. I look up to you, man, I really do,” Hester told Sanders.
“The texts I get from you every day, I share some of them with my teammates,” Hester added on air. “I know you share them with a couple guys, but I really appreciate them.”
Sanders had his say, when he could get out the words, but in the end there were four he spoke to Hester that had to mean as much as any he has ever heard:
“You’re the best ever.”
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