"You want to crown us, go ahead and crown us - on special teams," he said. "But we've got to do it for 16 weeks. We've done it for eight so far and we have the best special teams unit in the league right now.

"I haven't seen a special teams unit fly around like we fly around."

They know who to credit, too. It's special teams coach Dave Toub, the tall, burly guy still on the field at the end of each day trying to squeeze a few more repetitions in with punt returner Devin Hester after everyone has headed to the locker room.

"Coach is the mastermind behind the special teams," Ayanbadejo said.

Toub is a no-nonsense, practical coach who wants to make special teams gimmicks a luxury and not necessity. It seems he's succeeding.

"We don't need any trickery," Ayanbadejo said. "We're too good. There's no room to do trickery."

A special teams ranking system which takes into account 22 categories has the Bears rated first overall. They have been first six of the first eight weeks.

Toub won't take the credit, but players give him the lion's share.

"He's very detailed," kicker Robbie Gould said. "Yet he can do the wizard stuff if he needs to. He comes up with a great game plan every week."

Toub is working on a limited practice schedule. The Bears spend about 15 minutes daily on special teams and have a 40-minute daily meeting.

Toub, who was an offensive lineman at UTEP and had training camp stints with the Eagles and Rams, got into special teams out of necessity. He was unemployed after the 2000 college season.

"I was coaching the defensive line at Missouri and the whole staff got fired," he said.

Friend and former colleague Andy Reid contacted him about becoming an assistant special teams coach for the Philadelphia Eagles under special teams coach John Harbaugh, brother of former Bears quarterback Jim Harbaugh.

"There weren't a lot of assistant special teams coaches back then," Toub said. "There was the head guy and that was it. I got to work for John Harbaugh, who I consider the best."

Harbaugh's special teams units ranked No. 1 overall from 2001-2005. Toub and Oakland special teams coach Ted Daisher both served under him and have gone on to head special teams coaching posts.

"I learned everything that I know from him," Toub said. "Working under him, he really got me into it and taught me that there's a lot more to this than people realize. There so much more to it. There's a whole science to special teams that's behind the scenes."

It could be anything from developing hard-to-handle coverage schemes or techniques to little details. This week at practice, Toub knew Gould could punt left-footed even though he is a right-footed place-kicker. So he kept Gould after practice to imitate Dolphins left-footed punter Donnie Jones because the spin will be different on the punts Hester fields this week.

"He's a good coach because he schemes," Ayanbadejo said. "He sees a weakness.

"One thing I learned about him today, not only does he watch the field but he watches the sideline. And he gets tips and clues and knows what plays are going on based on other teams' sidelines. It could be reading their signals, it could be tendencies. It could be anything."

On some teams, player try to avoid special teams. That's not the case with the Bears.

"The guys are seeing that it can affect the outcome of games too - wins and losses - so guys are taking a lot of pride in our special teams right now," Toub said. "They want to be part of it.

"And if they're taken off of special teams, they're coming to me and wondering why they are being taken off. We've got so much competition right now that it's really elevating our play."