AP

Long-time Bears return specialist Devin Hester at one point sounded like a guy who was ready to leave Chicago. More recently, he has sounded like a guy who is ready to stay.

And so the question becomes whether the team is ready to keep him.

As our pal John Mullin of CSNChicago.com explains it, coach Marc Trestman says Hester is “competing” to be the Bears’ primary return man. Trestman’s reluctance to declare that the job belongs to Hester could mean that, in time, the Bears will decide to go in another direction — which would send Hester out of town.

If/when the Bears choose to move on from Hester, they’d presumably hope to trade him instead of cutting him. The former gets him out of the division; the latter means he could end up in Detroit, Minnesota, or Green Bay.

Hester, 30, has a base salary of $1.85 million in 2013. It’s not an excessive salary to carry, but with a new coach and a G.M. who arrived in 2012, the Bears could decide that it’s time to go younger at the position.