Why the Bears are okay with more of those Dante Hall-esque punt returns from Tarik Cohen 

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When Tarik Cohen started running toward his own end zone after receiving a punt last Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, the natural response from the Bears’ sideline was some variation of “what are you doing, kid?”

“I hope he goes forward at some point,” thought special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers. 

“I think everybody would be lying if they said they weren’t wondering in the first part of that,” coach John Fox said. “Any fan watching it on television or even on my head-set, the coaches know the return and know what’s supposed to be happening.”

In short, what Cohen was doing wasn’t exactly what was supposed to be happening. The return was set up to go left, not backward. 

“Yeah, it went left,” Cohen said. “It just took a while.”

But this is the thing with Cohen: He deservedly has the freedom to be, let’s call it, imaginative when he gets the ball in his hands. He’s arguably the most exciting player the Bears have had since Devin Hester, though his 61-yard punt return score on Sunday was more reminiscent of something former Kansas City Chiefs return ace Dante Hall would’ve done. 

Cohen’s breakdowns of punt returns by yardage this year:

Fair catches: 11
0 or fewer yards: 3 
1-10 yards: 9
11-20 yards: 5
20+ yards: 2 (including Sunday’s 61-yard touchdown)

Cohen has also had returns of 14, 28 and 67 yards called back for penalties. So there have been some duds in there, like his fumble of a bouncing punt against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that officially went as a zero-yard return. But even with those mistakes, the Bears have worked to nurture, not diminish, Cohen’s inventive side — even if it’s not always clear what his endgame is when he gets the ball in his hands. 

“I've seen Dante Hall, I’ve seen (Darren) Sproles, I’ve seen Pacman Jones, Devin Hester,” Rodgers said. “Guys who have done things that are a little bit unorthodox but they have ultimate confidence in what they're doing and they're tremendously fast and they have tremendous ability to make people miss. You've gotta be careful about taking that creativity away from a player like that. Going back to quarterbacks like Michael Vick, those guys are just different. You try and give them some guidance in how you want them to return, but at the end of the day, their instincts are going to take over and you hope they make more good decisions than bad.”

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