Monday night’s game brought NFL fans a belated Christmas present with a gift that kept on giving. It was a battle throughout, and a tale of two halves that carried over into an exciting overtime which included a missed field goal, a lost fumble, and a 39 yard game winning touchdown pass.

The excitement culminated in an exceptional fourth down gaming tying touchdown catch, as the underdog Bears’ big first half lead was evened out during the Viking’s explosive comeback. It could have been easy to have missed Hunter Hillenmeyer ‘s 13 solo tackles, 2 assists, and broken up pass. What wasn’t easy to miss was his forced fumble in overtime. When Adrian Peterson broke open it looked as if this big gain was going to put the Vikings on the path to completing their huge comeback that would be crucial to their playoff positioning. In the matter of a moment, in fact even before Peterson had a chance to finish the impressive run, it all came crumbling down. That was not only the crushing blow for the Vikings hopes of a victory, but for their hopes of clinching a first bye that night as well as stealing the #1 overall spot. This dream crushing tackle and forced fumble was created by none other than this week Ernie Adams award winner and Chicago Bears middle linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer.
Hillenmeyer has played well since moving into the middle linebacker position vacated by injured Brian Urlacher and this performance he not only filled those big shows in a big way he managed to cast his own shadow on the big stage of Monday Night Football.

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