Hester Superman or Superhyped?

The Bears signed Devin Hester, aka DH, AKA our Designated Hero, to a deal up to 40 million dollars. Its great. Devin's happy. I am happy. Bears' nation rejoices. But, something still bugs me about the way this all went down. It made me think of iTruth's criticism of the Bears he expressed last Tuesday when DH didn't report to camp, "I don't get the Bears. They constantly degrade opposing players on other teams as an excuse for not bringing in marquee free agents. Then the Bears start glorifying their unproven and often mediocre players on the roster. This just leads to our players, thinking that they are great and demanding large contracts".

iTruth's right to the extent that the Bears seem to always over-rate their players. Examples include, Grossman, Orton, Daniel Manning, the fake Adrien Peterson, Benson, Rashid Davis, and even Devin Hester to a smaller extent. I get a headache every time Lovie proclaims, "I like the players we got". As if the 500 other NFL players belong on the Indiana Hoosiers' football team. You never hear them say the same great things about how great Randy Moss or other proven top tier talent could help us. No, instead we glorify a kick returner, who used to be a corner, hoping to turn all-pro WR. A jump like Hester's hasn't happened since MJ took off from the free throw line.

This doesn't mean that I think Devin Hester's a bad player. Its clear, he is a great and possibly the best KR/PR the game has ever seen. The problem, we have no idea if he is a #1 WR, let alone an NFL caliber receiver. However, the Bears evidently do, constantly singing his praise and listing him as a starting WR at the start of camp before the holdout. So, you can't blame Hester from asking to be paid like a #1 WR. When your head coach and WR's coach praise you as if you're the next Steve Smith, then you should ask to be paid like Steve Smith.

Even worse, reports from the Tribune and SunTimes have written that Lovie Smith and Daryl Drake (the Bears WR coach) were instrumental in getting Hester's new deal done by offering their support for the receiver. This might be harsh, but your head coach and position coach shouldn't act like Drew Rosenhaus as an agent for the player. Ask yourself, would the two Bills, Bill Parcells or Bill Belichick ever do this? I doubt it. Instead, they would likely distance themselves from the situation and either a) pretend like the player never existed or b) put em on the next train out of Bourbanais.

I am excited that our Designated Hero is a Bear. I am hopeful he'll turn into the next Steve Smith. But, I also wish our coaching staff would act like the two Bills.