Cutler's late TD pass to 'go-to guy' Hester rallies Bears past Seattle

SEATTLE - The Bears have trumpeted Devin Hester as their No. 1 receiver since last season, and Sunday he lived up to those claims.

Nothing Hester has done in his three years since converting from cornerback to wide receiver screamed "go-to guy" more than his game-winning 36-yard touchdown catch on the first play after the two-minute warning.

With the Bears trailing 19-17 and at the Seahawks' 36 looking to get into field-goal range, Hester ran a quick slant toward the middle of the field, leaped to catch a high throw from Jay Cutler and got hit immediately.

But he bounced off safety Deon Grant and cornerback Travis Fisher and sprinted into the end zone for a 25-19 victory at Qwest Field.

"Whenever we get Devin 1-on-1, we think the edge is on our side," Cutler said. "He ran a great route, I put it a little bit out there, and he made a heck of a catch and run. He makes one guy miss, and it's a touchdown, and that's the game."

Hester finished with 5 catches for 76 yards and was confident enough in his ability to beat the Seahawks' coverage that he told Cutler to get him the ball.

"Whenever you get in a rhythm, and you feel it, and you're kind of dominating, you want the ball in your hands," Hester said. "I stepped up to him and I said, 'Hey, I think we can get a shot on this if we throw a slant.'

"He (Cutler) came to me when it counted, and I stepped up and made a play. That's how it went down."

And Sunday's game may go down as the one where Hester became what Bears coach Lovie Smith believed he could be since last season: a No. 1 receiver in the NFL.

"He's a threat when he gets the football," Smith said. "He can score at any time, and that's what happened. He's caught the ball well, he's running great routes, and he should get better and better each week.

"Devin Hester is a No. 1 receiver and hopefully we can keep putting him in position to make plays like that."

Hester leads the Bears with 187 receiving yards and is tied with Earl Bennett (4 catches, 80 yards Sunday) for the team lead with 13 receptions. If he maintains the same pace for a full season, Hester will finish with 70 catches for 997 yards.

But his 51 catches for 665 yards last season weren't nearly enough to convince skeptics and even most Bears fans that he was a legitimate No. 1 receiver when the team started training camp.

Cutler says he quickly realized that the critics were wrong about Hester.

"He's shown me something since I first got here," said Cutler, who arrived via trade April 2. "They said he didn't know the playbook, he couldn't get out of cuts, (and) he had trouble catching the ball. All of that's been false since Day One.

"He's worked as hard if not harder than everybody in that room to get ready for the season. He's really driven. He wanted the ball a lot today.

"He was always in my ear, saying, 'I got it, give it to me.' Whenever we called his number, he came up big for us."

A 22-yard pass to Hester helped get the Bears in position for Cutler's 7-yard TD pass to rookie Johnny Knox, who juked linebacker Aaron Curry at the 5-yard line and then dove for the pylon with the ball extended and nicked it just before going out of bounds. That score, 3:32 into the third quarter, gave the Bears their first lead at 14-13.

It was set up when, on the Seahawks' second play of the second half, Charles Tillman stripped the ball from T.J. Houshmandzadeh after a short gain, and Adewale Ogunleye recovered at Seattle's 42.

After a Lance Briggs interception at the Seahawks' 14, the Bears settled for Robbie Gould's 37-yard field goal and a 17-13 lead with 5:31 left in the third quarter.

But Seattle's Olindo Mare, who missed FG attempts from 34 and 43 yards, brought the home within a point on a 39-yard field goal 12 seconds into the fourth quarter.

Mare's 46-yarder gave Seattle a 19-17 lead with 5:12 left, and it came after Seahawks linebacker Aaron Curry tipped the ball out of Cutler's hand as he cocked his arm to pass, and Cory Redding recovered for Seattle.

That's when Hester stepped up.

"All I really did was kept my eye on the ball," he said. "I knew the safety (Grant) was coming, and I thought he was going to kill me. I felt a little nudge, came down, and I was still on my feet so I continued to run with it. I didn't get an opportunity to see those two guys collide."

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