Tom Crabtree was the hero of the day for the Green Bay Packers special teams unit Thursday night.
But failing to recognize what punter Tim Masthay accomplished against one of the best returners in NFL history would be like complimenting a brat vendor for his product without thanking the guy who cooked it.
Crabtree's touchdown might not have meant anything if it weren't for Masthay limiting Chicago's Devin Hester to 8 punt return yards in the Packers' 23-10 victory at Lambeau Field.
Masthay averaged 47.6 yards per punt, but more importantly blasted the ball high and inside the 20-yard line on three of his five punts. Hester returned two for gains of 1 and 7 yards, fair caught one and watched another bounce out of bounds at the Chicago 17.
The other was a touchback.
"I thought Tim was outstanding," special teams coach Shawn Slocum said Friday. "I thought he punted the ball very well. He had a couple of long, high balls. I thought he was very effective."
Crabtree made his mark with a 27-yard touchdown reception on a fake field goal. The guy who flipped it to him was Masthay, who now has a perfect career passer rating of 158.3.
Holding Hester in check was particularly valuable early in the game when the Packers offense was struggling. None of Masthay's first three punts - all in the first quarter - was returned.
Perhaps the best punt - and definitely the most risky - was one Slocum allowed to be kicked in bounds with 4 minutes, 19 seconds left in the game and the Packers ahead by 13. Rather than order Masthay to punt the ball out of bounds so Hester didn't have a chance to return it, he let him hit one of his end-over-end "drop" punts.
If Hester had returned that for a touchdown, Crabtree's touchdown would have been long forgotten and Slocum would have gone from genius to idiot in the time it took the Bears star to run 83 yards. But Hester managed just 1 yard.
"I actually stressed him (Masthay) a little bit," Slocum said. "We used the drop punt and that's about as far as we've used that in that situation. It was OK because Robert ( Francois) got down there pretty quick."
In two games, Masthay is averaging 47.9 yards gross and 41.7 net. Only three of his 11 punts have been returned and seven have landed inside the 20.
Tom Silverstein wrote: