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Special teams could be key in Sunday's Carolina-Chicago game at Bank of America Stadium. That's because the Bears feature Devin Hester, who set an NFL record of six returned kicks for touchdowns last season (four punts, two kickoffs).
“He's probably as good as … (actually) if not the best in the league,” said Panthers coach John Fox. “He's dangerous every time he gets his hands on the ball and he's even playing wide receiver now.”
Fox also hopes some Panthers special-teams errors against San Diego last week have been ironed out.
He said Carolina was fortunate that two mistakes – a fumbled kickoff by Jonathan Stewart and a misfielded punt by Mark Jones – didn't lead to San Diego points.
Stewart recovered his fumble.
On Jones' error, the ball hit off his leg and bounced into the end zone, where teammate Dante Wesley recovered it.
“Obviously on the kickoff, the coverage isn't quite there yet, but it does throw off the timing of the play and gives you poor field position,” said Fox.
“The punt could have been disastrous. Those are things we worked on this week and hopefully from Game1 to Game2 squared away.”
Bridges shows off his return skills
Panthers offensive lineman Jeremy Bridges doesn't want to take credit for the last-second victory last week, but…
Bridges actually fielded the squib kickoff that began the Panthers' final possession, returning it 15 yards to the Carolina 32.
Jake Delhomme and Dante Rosario, of course, took over from there.
“I'll take responsibility for it,” said Bridges. “I caught the ball and I ran it.”
Here's how Bridges explained his return, the first time he's carried the ball since he played Pop Warner Football:
“They kicked it short and my first reaction was to let it go by me. But it came right to me and bounced higher than I expected.
“I didn't know how far (returners) Jonathan (Stewart) was behind me, or Dante.
“I grabbed it, ran up field and got down.”
Bridges figured that was the key play of the game.
“It's on film,” he said. “It was on national TV.”
Quick hits
About 225 tickets remain for the game (returned to the Panthers from the Bears). They're available at the Panthers box office or Ticketmaster.
Today is a homecoming for Bears assistant coaches
Pep Hamilton (quarterbacks) and
Steven Wilks (defensive backs).
Hamilton and Wilks are both former quarterbacks at West Charlotte High.
Hamilton went on to play at Howard and has been coaching in the NFL since 2003.
Wilks, a former Appalachian State player, started his coaching career as an assistant at Johnson C. Smith in 1995 and has been with the Bears since 2006.
