PHILADELPHIA -- The Eagles had to deal with Devin Hester on Monday night. This Sunday, Patrick Petersoncomes to town.
Talk about a tough couple of games for Philadelphia's special teams.
Peterson is putting up Hester-like numbers in his rookie year with the Arizona Cardinals. In eight NFL games, Peterson has three punt returns for touchdowns, including a 99-yarder in overtime Sunday that sent the Cardinals past the St. Louis Rams.
"Hester is up here," Eagles special teams ace Akeem Jordan said, raising his hand above his head. "He's the best. The key is treating everyone like he's Hester. This new guy, he's good, real good. We'll try to do the same things."
The Eagles held Hester in check during their 30-24 loss to the Chicago Bears. He had one punt return for 19 yards and averaged 10 yards on three kickoff returns.
Philadelphia's punt coverage team hasn't been that busy this year. Through eight games, rookie punter Chaz Henry has punted just 20 times. Only nine have been returned for a total of 71 yards, an average of 7.9 yards per return, which is 11th best in the league.
"(Last week) against Hester, it was the best I've ever had anywhere," long-time special teams coach Bobby April said. "He's really good and boy, the guys did a good job and played very well. It wasn't anything I did, because we kept it very vanilla. He's hard to stop and they're hard to stop because they have a lot of really good players out there with him."
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press
