The latest two players added to the Saints Hall of Fame are both kick returners I’ve had the pleasure of watching in person. Both were pretty much the best returners in the league for a short time at their peak. Hughes made the Pro Bowl as a rookie in 1993 and Lewis also made it once in 2002.
Hughes finished his career with 5 kick returns (kickoff or punt) for touchdowns as a Saint, which is a historical team record, and Lewis finished with 4. Reggie Bush is the only other Saint in team history with 4 returns for touchdowns to round out the top three.
My favorite memory for Lewis was when I attended a Saints-Redskins game in the DC area. Steve Spurrier was the coach at the time for the Redskins and he had criticized Jim Haslett’s (Saints coach) work ethic in the offseason, suggesting that long office hours were doing him no good. For Haslett to stick it to Spurrier in that game was nice, but Lewis pretty much did it all on his own. Lewis ran back two kicks in that game, a kickoff of 90 yards for a touchdown and a punt of 83 yards for a touchdown. He also made some plays as a receiver, catching a 58 yard bomb from Aaron Brooks. I remember attending that game with a friend Redskin fan and he said after the catch “that guy is killing us”. That guy was a 29 year old beer truck driver in New Orleans two years before that.
My favorite memory of Hughes was his rookie season when the Saints played the Vikings. The Vikings were a pretty solid team and I felt like the Saints dominated that game, especially defensively. But the Vikings took a very fortunate 14-7 lead in the 3rd quarter and the Saints offense played so poorly with the inept Wade Wilson at quarterback that a 7 point deficit felt like a death sentence. But on the kickoff after that Vikings touchdown, Hughes went 99 yards to tie it at 14, and the Saints would use a Morten Andersen 4th quarter kick to take a 17-14 win. That game also involved a tying field goal by the Vikings with seconds left that would be called back by a penalty, and the re-try would be missed.
Hats off to two of the most exciting and electric players I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching in a Saints uniform!
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