The Chicago Bears Fan Forum

The Bears

• The Austin American-Statesman says that the Lower Colorado River Authority does not have video of Cedric Benson’s arrest. But they do have an audio recording. If Benson is telling the truth, this could be very good for him. If he’s lying or exaggerating in accounts he’s given to the Bears and to the national press then it could get very, very ugly.

• Another witness has come forward and supported Benson in his claims. Toby Patch was watching from a marina where, I assume, Benson was brought ashore.

  “It seemed to me they were manhandling him a little bit,” Patch said. “As they were taking him up the dock, they stopped, he said, ‘I am fine, I can continue walking,’ and they put their legs behind his knees and knocked him over his knees and started hog-carrying him.”

  Then he said when the officers got Benson to the parking area, things really got out of hand.

  “They ended up — I don’t know why — but laid him on his back, I heard him say, ‘Please don’t pepper spray me, please don’t pepper spray me,’” Patch said.

  In defense of the LCRA, this was after Benson allegedly provoked them. But having said that, it certainly doesn’t sound good.

• Barry Rozner gives his rather humorous take on the Benson affair saying it doesn’t add up. Rozner says:

  “He is perhaps the softest 220-pound Chicago Bear in recent memory.

  “The public is supposed to believe, however, that this same man resisted arrest, even while handcuffed, to the point where he needed to get hit with pepper spray, and that during the event he used profanity and was combative, cocky and insulting.”

  Hey, Barry, he did cry for his mother…

• Brad Biggs of the Chicago Sun-Times points out that DT Tommie Harris and agent Drew Rosenhaus have little reason to want to hurry in negotiating an extension. The risk of injury increases as training camp approaches and that may be the time to look for a deal to be done. Having said that, if Rosenhaus expects the Bears to panic and start bidding against themselves in an effort to get something done quick he probably shouldn’t hold his breath. You’d think the negotiations on behalf of LB Lance Briggs would have taught him that.

• ESPN’s John Clayton called the release of Adam Archuleta a “surprising move”. I can’t imagine why.

• I’m also not too shocked to learn that former Bear Rabih Abdullah was arrested late Wednesday for driving with a suspended license, as reported by the television station WFST., making it the fourth time in two years Abdullah has been arrested in Hillsborough County, Florida. Maybe I’ve become a little desensitized. Let me know when he starts smothering babies.

• Interestingly enough, new Bears undrafted free agent signee Caleb Hanie rates his chances of sticking on the roster a lot lower than even I do. Speaking of Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton, Hanie told the Denver Post, “It’s a good situation. Obviously they could both do well this year, and they could keep them both. If one of them struggles, they could decide they don’t need one of them, and it opens up a roster spot for a guy like me. There are a lot of different scenarios.”

  Message to Hanie: you’ve got a pretty good shot at sticking behind them no matter how well Grossman and Orton do. You’re what’s known as a “project” which stands for “clipboard holder”. Welcome to the NFL where, believe it or not, clipboard holders do get a roster spot.

• Having said that, the Bears QB problems should be over soon anyway. It turns out former NFL QB Shaun King hasn’t filed retirement papers. [Note that there may have been a wee bit of sarcasm there that doesn’t come across in print…]

Elsewhere

• From the Miami Herald via Ben Maller at FOX Sports: At the 12 MGM Mirage hotel properties in Nevada, the odds of the Dolphins winning next season’s Super Bowl have shrunk from 150-1 to 60-1 since February. That big a jump ”is unusual,” MGM sports book manager Robert Walker said. ”People have a lot of confidence in Bill Parcells. They’re plucking $10 to $20 down on Miami when they come to Las Vegas.” Note that “people” and “suckers” are synonymous when coming from a bookie’s mouth. A Tootsie Pop like me ought to know.

• Former Patriot assistant video editor Matt Walsh sent the league video taped play calling signals of five opponents in six games over 2 years (no Rams Super Bowl walkthrough). Like ESPN’s Hashmarks blogger Matt Mosley, I doubt very much that further sanctions against the Patriots will be dealt out. All indications are that the tapes are more or less consistent with what the Patriots have already admitted to. And let’s be honest. No one wants Bill Belichick to start babbling about what he knows about other teams cheating, something I’m convinced he’d start doing if he gets picked on any further. Unless it’s the Packers.

One Final Thought

• Ex-49ers QB Joe Montana is suing his ex-wife for selling his love letters. No word on exactly what he wrote in them. Probably something like, “Insensitivity completes me.”

The Bears

• Bob LeGere points out that Cedric Benson shouldn’t be released for committing a single misdemeanor. Benson’s history in college aside, I think he’s probably correct. But I don’t think anyone need worry. If the NFL in general and the Bears in particular have a problem, releasing players who get in legal trouble too quickly definitely isn’t it.

• Jay Mariotti provides his take on the incident here and (once again) calls for the Bears to cut ties with Benson. He brings up one or two of the same points I did in my blog entry. But if you are going to let Benson go for football reasons you should at least wait to see how he’s running in camp. I did think that Benson ran well when he was on the field before last year and there’s always the (slim) possibility that he’ll come into camp in shape and mentally prepared to become the complete back he should be. He at least deserves the chance and it won’t cost the Bears much to provide it for him.

• The Chicago Tribune has a interesting article providing some background for the Benson incident. I don’t know exactly what happened but, based upon the accompanying photo, I have to say I wish I’d been there. Niccccee…

• Bears rookie DT Marcus Harrison had some nice things to say about Bears rookie WR Marcus Monk. Asked what Monk can do, Harrison said: “Everything. He’s a big target, so you can’t miss him.” He sounds tailor made to work with Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton. [Sorry, but that was just too easy to pass up.]

• Larry Mayer of chicagobears.com addresses the possibility of signing QB Chris Simms if the Bucs release him. He’s leaning against it and I would have to agree. Though I’m rooting for Simms it’s hard for me to imagine that the Bears could do anything with him that Jon Gruden couldn’t.

• In a nice article on former professional QB Doug Williams, who is now working in the Tampa Bay front office, Williams’ role in convincing Gruden and GM Bruce Allen to take QB Josh Johnson is highlighted. Williams says that in scouting Johnson he saw a guy who had what it takes to succeed as a long term project. “He didn’t do well at the scouting combine; he had a terrible combine throwing the football,” Williams said. “That probably knocked him down two or three rounds.”

  I’ve said this before but I sincerely hope that the Bears are not going to regret passing on Johnson. It’s funny how the fate of franchises can turn on a single day.

  Given the difficulty evaluating QBs, I think it’s interesting that the Bucs’ philosophy seems to be to get as many of them into camp as possible and then sort them out from there. The Bears, who haven’t drafted a QB in three years, seem to be doing almost the direct opposite. Should be interesting to see which philosophy, if either, succeeds.

Elsewhere

• The Sporting News’ Mike Florio notes that Philadelphia police do not consider Marvin Harrison a suspect in a shooting there “at this time”. Meaning he could become one soon…

• The Bears aren’t the only team having contract trouble with star linebackers. Ray Lewis is entering the last year of his contract and the two sides are apparently pretty far apart. The Ravens appear ready to let Lewis hit the market. The guess here is that Lewis is overestimating his value. He turns 33 in May.

One Final Thought

Garret Reid, son of Eagle’s head Andy Reid, will reportedly plead guilty to smuggling 89 pills into jail last November by hiding them in his rectum. One can only wonder how they were discovered. Just sayin’…

The Bears

• Gale Sayers took time to appear at a sports festival over the weekend. He joked, “I’ve been out of football for over 35 years, and I thought all my fans were dead.” Legends never die, sir.

• Former Bear and current Seattle Seahawk wide receiver, Bobby Engram skipped Monday’s voluntary veteran mini-camp because he is upset about his contract. Engram is entering the last year of his contract. He’s 35. Good luck with that.

• The Bears finally released Adam Archuleta yesterday. Who didn’t see that one coming? The Bears don’t have a lot of depth at safety but guys aren’t going to help much if they aren’t good depth. By all accounts rookie Craig Steltz will help.

  One can hardly blame Lovie Smith for giving Archuleta a chance but, given his performance in Washington, trading Chris Harris in training camp and depending upon Archuleta instead was a bad move.

• Cedric Benson has a friend who is corroborating his story. I’ll say this for Benson. While I still think even his version of the incident indicates a total lack of common sense, I have no trouble believing he might be the victim of harassment and racial profiling.

The NFC North

• Former Vikings defensive end Darrion Scott was arrested last week for holding a bag over his 2 year old son’s head. He said he wanted to see if the kid could struggle out of the bag on his own.  Half of me wonders how bored the players must be up there. The other half is physically ill.

• The Vikings thought they could sneak their former 7^th round pick, QB Tyler Thigpen, through waivers and put him on the practice squad. The Chiefs pounced on him because they think he might be able to start over Brodie Croyle. Thigpen couldn’t beat out Tarvaris Jackson. Just sayin’…

• Jon Kitna is still talking about winning 10 games but he’s at least being more careful with his words, saying that its their “expectation”. Not exactly a prediction. Maybe God has finally made him smarter. At 35 years old, I have to wonder what took Him so long.

One Final Thought

• After 1,581 days of wearing a Brett Favre jersey, David Witthoft wore a red shirt for the first time on April 24. When we say “wearing a Brett Favre jersey” we mean the same shirt. Makes you wonder how PETA could be worried so much about cruelty to a horse when they are cutting Packer jerseys off of kids in Connecticut and Germans are parenting their kids by giving them Paris Hilton dolls.

• Matt Forte tells Bob LeGere of the Chicago Daily Herald “Running the ball is a natural ability, and there are little things to work on with that but most of all you want to work on pass blocking, knowing who to block each time, catching the ball when it’s thrown to you, and protecting the ball.” Not to beat this into the ground but Forte is a guy who gets it. Cedric Benson never developed because he never went beyond where his natural running ability would take him. Here’s hoping Forte is different not just in thought, but in action as well.

• Brad Biggs at the Chicago Sun-Times says that there will be no cap savings by releasing Benson after June 1. Benson has a conditional guarantee on his salary that basically says the Bears are on the hook for 3.3 million of dead cap money if they release him due to injury – which he could easily claim in arbitration and win. Some fans might say that it’s dead money even if he’s on the roster. Just sayin’…

• Bill Williamson at ESPN.com’s Hashmarks blog thinks the Bears might have taken Rashard Medenhall if Benson had pulled his stunt before the draft.I’m not so sure. Left tackles are a lot harder to find in the draft than running backs and most teams feel that you need to take one when you can get him. And the Bears definitely needed one. You could tell they were planning on one being available from the minute they released 2007 right tackle Fred Miller. I’m sure the backup plan was to find a right tackle later on and leave John Tait where he was on the left instead of moving him to the right. But that was far from the most desirable option.

And I still think Felix Jones will be a better pro back than Mendenhall. Besides, I’m sure Mendenhall will perform much better behind the Steeler’s offensive line than he probably ever would have with the Bears. He may come out ahead in the end.

• David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune reports that, while he’s fine physically after his confrontation, Benson might need some mental recovery time. Benson’s attorney Brian Carney claims, “It’s demoralizing, it shakes you up. You have a lot of people coming to the conclusion that you have done something wrong, because all you have is the police reports and their version of what went on. Because of the fact that you haven’t had any criminal prosecution you are very reluctant to say much.”

Hey Brian, you want demoralizing? Try the feelings of hopelessness Bear fans get watching Benson take the ball and lumber up to the line of scrimmage. Try the feelings of futility as they watch him moving like dazed moose over and over again, knowing that it’s because he didn’t work hard enough to get into shape. Try the feelings of frustration they get when they think about how small the chances are that he’ll do better because he subsequently refuses to take personal responsibility for his failures –not surprisingly very much like what he’s doing now. I think Bear fans know demoralizing.

• Carney also thought instead of hosing Benson down just to wash off the pepper spray that “They might as well have been waterboarding him.” Hey, Brian, are you sure they didn’t cut off a digit while he was there? Maybe some bamboo shoots under the finger nails?

• Steve Doerschuk of the CantonRep talks about the value of a good one two punch in the backfield. “The Bears did well when they had one. They reached their first Super Bowl since 1985 with Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson rushing for 1,857 yards. They fared poorly last season with the wrong duo — Benson and Adrian Peterson totaled 1,184 yards and a lame 3.4 yards per carry.

“Maybe if they’d teamed Benson with the right Adrian Peterson …”

Yeah, we know, Steve. Jerry Angelo had it and then he threw it away by letting Jones go and apparently missing on Garrett Wolfe. We don’t have (the right) Adrian Peterson but we’re all liking what we hear from what we’ve got now. Well, one of them, anyway.

• Mike Florio at Profootballtalk.com took a look back at the 2005 draftees. He (IMO correctly) labeled 7 of the top 10 busts. Care to guess how Benson fit into that list? Let’s just say he was far from lonely.

• Ex-Bear J. T. O’Sullivan is getting high praise with the 49ers from both Mike Nolan and Mike Martz. “He has an excellent arm, no question about it,” Martz said of O’Sullivan. “He’s very accurate, very quick with the ball. He just needs to play. He needs to develop.”Isn’t it lovely to think that the Bears might have had an effective QB that they let get away in O’Sullivan? Mean while the eternal search continues…

• The Sporting News came out with NFC cornerback rankings yesterday. I’m having a hard time understanding how the Bears starters, Nathan Vasher and Charles Tillman, are only eighth on this list. I guess that’s what happens when you go 7-9. But what’s really puzzling is how Antoine Winfield and Cedric Griffin for the Vikings ended up fourth. The defensive line got a lot better with the addition of Jared Allen and they’ll make the defensive backs look better but to my eye these guys are still a weak point.

• HBO’s Hard Knocks will feature the Cowboys again this year. Say what you want about the Bears, I don’t think they’d allow training camp to become the kind of circus that publicity hound Jerry Jones seems to love. Not intentionally, anyway…

• The main attraction of the Belgian-made gun that was reportedly used in the shooting outside Marvin Harrison’s car wash in Philadelphia last week? The one that Harrison owns? Its ability to penetrate 48 layers of Kevlar at 50 meters. Kevlar is what police body armor is made out of.

And they wonder why so many of us prefer to think about football.

I wanted to cut Cedric Benson a break. I mean, I really did. It seems like all I ever do is bash this kid – and that’s what he really is, 25 years old going on 16 – and I feel badly. The truth is that I don’t like the guy and while I’m not the most intelligent guy I am just smart enough to know that it affects the way I look at the things that he does. It makes me more negative than usual.

So I’ve been looking for an opportunity for some time to balance it all out by saying something positive and supportive about him. And yesterday morning when the news hit about Benson’s arrest for boating while intoxicated, I thought I’d found it. Unlike a lot of Bear fans, my first thought wasn’t, “Cut him.” My first thought wasn’t “Oh, great. More Tank Johnson garbage.” My first thought was, “Yeah, right. Like you’ve never been drunk on a boat.”

Admittedly, I’ve never operated one drunk but I can see how easy it would be to have it happen. Hey, anyone can make a mistake like that one and no one got hurt or anything, right? I actually started writing the blog entry in my head. Cut the guy a break, I thought.

Then the details started coming out. Resisting arrest? Pepper spray? Struggling with police and being dragged into the deputy’s car? Cedric, baby boopy. I want to be nice but give me something to work with here.

Benson claims that he wasn’t drunk. He claims that the cops abused him for no apparent reason and that he’s a target for the authorities (read “profiling”). “I get pulled over every time I take my boat out,” Benson said. “It’s Austin, Texas. They know me.” Translation: “It wasn’t my fault. Blame the cops.”

Unfortunately there is pretty good reason to doubt Benson here. I think The Chicago Sun-Times Mike Mulligan put it best:

If Benson is cut now after this incident it will be due to a character flaw on the player’s part–one that apparently went unnoticed when it came time to judge him as a college player. Every misstep the guy has made as a Bear, whether it be walking off the sidelines during a pre-season game or getting punched in the chops by Thomas Jones for goofing around during a drill in the 2006 season has been blamed on somebody else. It was the media who reported Benson’s early departure who were at fault and the players who told them about the incident who were searched out. It was Jones who was run off after leading the team to the Super Bowl in order to clear the path for Benson.

Last year, when the running game faltered badly with Benson starting in place of Jones, draft-pick-defender Angelo backed Benson during the bye week saying “Cedric is performing to the best of his abilities” and “giving top effort” and chiding the media for criticism of Benson with: “it’s not one person.” Benson was 28th in the league in rushing at the time despite having the 11th most carries. Blame the offensive line.

Well, despite Benson’s best efforts to convince us to the contrary, there’s no one to blame this time but himself. There just isn’t any acceptable excuse. This time the Bears have run out of them and, as I said above, I was never that big on making them for Benson, anyway.

If Benson believed that he was being targeted by the Lower Colorado River Authority, what in world was he doing out on that river partying with a large number of drunk people in the first place? Where’s your common sense, man?

The police had to pepper spray him and to drag him to the squad car and I’m supposed to believe that he did nothing at all? My heavens, if I’m caught drinking in a vehicle, you think I’m going to be even the least bit threatening? You think I’m going to argue at all? No. I’m going to sit quietly in the back of the squad car and concentrate on not letting the beer run back out of my bladder and down my leg. I’m going to do that not out of cowardice but out of the knowledge that I’m in deep trouble here and above all I can’t make it worse. And I’m going to know that all the more if I’m not actually drunk. In which case, I’m going to be glad to take the sobriety test and get out clean.

I’ll say this. The description of the field sobriety test administered to Benson explains a lot:

Detainees may be asked to follow an object with their eyes, do the alphabet and count down with their fingers.

Hell, there’s your problem. We’ll probably never know if Benson was drunk or not because, based upon his actions in relation to this incident, he likely isn’t smart enough to do those things sober.

My gut feeling is that the Bears are going to stick by Benson.  The Chicago Tribune’s David Haugh makes the point this morning that that Benson can still be of value to the team and that might be true.  But there’s good reason to doubt. You can draft a running back to push Benson and keep him in shape. You can heal his shoulder and his medial collateral ligament. You can do surgery and put in plates to set his broken leg and to make it whole. You can even draft an offensive tackle to open more holes for him. You can do all of these things to help Cedric Benson’s game. But you can’t fix stupid.

• First round pick Chris Williams amused interviewers the other day with his take on his failure to retaliate after a scuffle at a Senior Bowl practice with Texas A&M’s Red Bryant. Bryant reportedly said that he left Williams with a two day headache. Williams said:

“There’s not any truth to that. As far as beating a grown man in full pads, I was like, ‘I’m not going to break my hand hitting him in the helmet. He can hit me as many times as he wants.’ I was laughing the whole time like, ‘Please keep hitting me and break your hand and get drafted in the 12th round.’”

Sorry, Chris. There’s no 12^th round any more. You did go to Vanderbilt, right?

• Former Bear QB Cade McNown has joined Irvine, CA-based Thompson National Properties LLC (TNP) as senior vice president of investor development. “Cade’s winning attitude and willingness to compete at the highest levels will help Thompson National Properties close deals,” Tony Thompson, chairman and CEO of TNP, said in a statement. Presumably Thompson doesn’t watch many Bear games.

• I was listening for Cedric Benson news early yesterday morning when I turned on ESPN 1000. Bears beat reporter Jeff Dickerson said that when he called the Travis County Sheriff’s office, the deputy on the other end of the line said [presumably with hic southern accent], “We don’t talk about Cedric Benson ’round here.” As Dikerson said, it seems the old boy network is alive and well in BFE, Texas. I assume he responded, “Yes, sah, Walkin’ Boss!” Fortunately, the Lower Colorado River Authority has no such scruples and I guess they gave the reporters the needed information.

• From the week’s Pro Football Weekly Whispers column: “We hear whoever ends up looking better between Bears undrafted rookie QBs Nick Hill (Southern Illinois) and Caleb Hanie (Colorado State) has an excellent shot of becoming the team’s No. 3 QB, with the other signal caller landing on the practice squad — unless the Bears suddenly decide to go after one of the many quarterbacks the Buccaneers seem to have at their disposal.” I’m betting they do the latter and cut the rookie FA who looks the worst.

• From the same column: “With 13 wideouts on the Packers’ 80-man roster, we hear there may not be room anymore for veteran Koren Robinson, who has a bone-on-bone knee problem that figures to get worse before it gets better.” I can heard Skip Bayless moaning all the way from the bay area. Bayless swore that Robinson was going to be a star and bashed the Bears unmercifully for not taking him (like he bashed them for everything). Admittedly the Bears took David Terrell…

• Following up on yesterday, Rashard Medenhall missed the entire Steeler’s minicamp with a bad hamstring. He’s expected to be OK by the next set of offseason workouts May 20 but its pretty obvious that Steeler’s head coach Mike Tomlin is a bit frustrated. Makes you wonder if the Bears didn’t save themselves a bit of a headache by not giving in to bone-headed fans who wanted to fix the RB position before fixing the offensive line.

• San Diego chargers tackle Marcus McNeil has seen enough of Minnesota’s newest defensive end, Jared Allen, to know that the Bears are in some trouble. McNeil said, “Minnesota now has the best defensive line in the NFL with Allen and the two Williams’ (tackles Kevin and Pat) in the middle. Who do you double team?” Time for another Vikings boat trip. Cedric Benson’s driving.

• I love Jeff Fisher. Upon seeing a new rookie walking out onto the field with Pacman Jones‘ old jersey number, Fisher order him to remove it. “He’s not going to be wearing that,” Fisher said. “We had discussed it this morning and for some reason someone told him to get dressed and come out. But that won’t be his number. … He’d prefer to wear a different number than 32 and you can read into it all you want.” I’ll always think seeing Fisher coaching any team but the Bears is just wrong.

• The rumors swirling about Cedric Benson’s potential arrest cannot bode well for him with a nice potential replacement just having been drafted. We’ve been wondering how the Bears were going to carry four running backs on the roster. Benson may be on his way to solving the problem for them.

• Second round pick Matt Forte already shows that he’s a lot smarter than Benson was at this point with this statement: “The quickest way to get on the field is to learn your pass protections and show you can block and protect the quarterback. If you can do that and you can run your routes and catch the ball, that is the fastest way on the field.”

• The league appears to be serious about a 2011 lockout. They are already preparing for war with the players.

• Greg Blache has trimmed the play book and sounds like his old self after boycotting the media last year. The bet here is that the Redskins defense is even better with him in charge.

• The David Faaeteete era has already ended. `We were looking for something a little bit different,” coach Lovie Smith said. In shorts? I’d love to know what moronic thing this kid did to deserve this.

• For those who wanted Rashard Mendenhall in the draft, he’s already sat out both practices at Steeler’s minicamp yesterday. He’s already tweaked a hamstring.

• Some San Diego Chargers fan has tattooed a lightning bolt insignia onto both sides of his head. No word on whether it was Mike Tyson.

• The 49ers are using their mini-camp to get the defensive players used to the new headsets for communication with the side-lines. Should be interesting to see how the Bears take advantage this new aspect of the game. Presumably Brian Urlacher won’t refuse to wear one until he gets a contract extension.

• Marvin Harrison apparently is, in fact, the target of the investigation of a shooting in Philadelphia last week. This may sound silly but I found the previous incidents which Harrison is reported to have been involved in more disturbing because at least two involved children. The guy reminds me of a pit bull, dogs that have a reputation for being nice pets most of the time but which can occasionally turn vicious when encountering weaker animals. Like human babies.

• David Haugh writes that new Bears DT Marcus Harrison might be paying a great price for a single, isolated incident. Still Haugh couldn’t help adding, “Just don’t use the example of Tank Johnson to illustrate how [Lovie] Smith and the Bears have tried to help charismatic defensive tackles with troubled pasts.” Amen. I’m sure Bear fans will forgive the skepticism. But I’m from Missouri. You have to show me.

• Dan Pompei reports that the Vikings may have added the most talent in the form of undrafted free agents this year. The were extremely aggressive, paying as much as $20,000 in bonuses. They aren’t messing around up there. They obviously believe that this is their year and they’re going for it. Which makes the decision to stick with Tavaris Jackson at QB all the more puzzling. Maybe Jackson is better than we all think. We’ll see.

At about 4:45 this morning this post hit my email box from the Huddle Up blog on the Chicago Tribune website:

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/huddleup/2008/05/benson-arrested.html

By Vaughn McClure

Bears running back Cedric Benson was arrested late Saturday night in Austin, Texas, and charged with boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest, both Class B misdemeanors.

According to a sergeant from the Travis County Sheriff’s office, Benson, who played at the University of Texas in Austin, was arrested by the Lower Colorado River Authority. He was booked at 11:24 p.m.and later bonded out, the sergeant said.

Benson, who had his 2007 season cut short by a broken leg, was in jeopardy of losing his starting spot even before the arrest. The fourth-overall pick of the 2005 draft struggled through his first three seasons with the Bears, failing to post a 1,000-yard campaign and averaging just 3.8 yards per carry. Benson averaged a career-low 3.4 yards per carry last season, finishing with 674 yards on 196 carries with four touchdowns in 11 games started. He missed the final five games with the leg injury.

The Bears sent a clear sign that they wanted more production from the running back position by selecting Tulane’s Matt Forte in the second round of this year’s draft. Forte’s ability to get to the outside and catch the ball out of the backfield were dimensions the Bears missed with Benson in the lineup, although Benson showed flashes against Seattle and Denver last season.

Benson had a couple of brushes with the law during his college days. He was arrested for marijuana possession in May of 2002 in his hometown of Midland, Texas. The charges were dropped when he passed a drug test and other evidence surfaced to clear him. In October of 2003, he was arrested for criminal trespassing after kicking down an apartment door in Austin, believing his $15,000 plasma television was inside. He received an eight-day prison sentence but never went behind bars because of time served on the day of the arrest, good behavior, and the lack of available beds at the local prison.

Note that the link to this post is now dead probably indicating that the post has been taken down.  So I have no idea how true this report will turn out to be.  A similar but much less specific post has been made to Profootballtalk.com as they prepare to reset the arrest meter.

UPDATE:  KVUE TV is Austin is reporting that Benson was, indeed, arrested.

One of the things I love about the ways people evaluate the NFL draft is that they are a little microcosm of the ways people can look at life in general. Like life, the draft is full of unknowns and you can’t tell anything about either until you look back years from now. At which point, of course, its too late to do anything about them. But nevertheless history’s effect upon each can continue to be profound.

You can evaluate the draft as an optimist like Mel Kiper, who says the Bears helped themselves more than any other team in the draft. Or you play the pessimist like Todd McShay, who says the Bears had the worst draft of any team in the NFC North. At this point no one is right and everyone is right.

Me? I often prefer what is best described as the “cynical b*st*rd” approach. There is something very satisfying about seeing the worst in life and the people in it. It makes you feel better about yourself, smugly superior in the knowledge that you, at least, are different.

So given this view point I will now answer two of the most commonly asked questions by Bear fans since the draft:

1. Why didn’t the Bears draft a quarterback?

2. Why did the Bears draft Matt Forte instead of trading up into the first round to grab a better prospect?

Bears GM Jerry Angelo says: The quarterback class was particularly weak this year. I wanted to draft someone at another position who could start rather than a quarterback who would be at best a backup.

Cynical b*st*rd says: What hogwash. No one can convince me that Josh Johnson isn’t a potential NFL starter and he was still sitting there in the fifth round. The cynical truth is that deep down inside, the blind/arrogant Angelo can’t bring himself to believe that Rex Grossman doesn’t have what it takes to succeed. Oh, sure, he’ll pay lip service to Kyle Orton and they’ll talk about “fair” competition in camp. But the truth is that it’s Grossman’s job to lose which means Orton has about a snowball’s chance in hell of coming out of it the starter.

No, Angelo didn’t take a QB, not because none of those available can start in the NFL, but because he doesn’t believe any can start ahead of his first round pick, Grossman. After all, if fifth round pick Johnson did eventually look just good enough to call that into question, it would mean that Angelo had made a mistake by drafting and then sticking with Grossman. And that didn’t happen. So it would have been a wasted pick.

The cynical b*st*rd’s answer to question number two is similar but more subtle. There is, I think, a certain realization within the organization that Cedric Benson performed a lot better when he had Thomas Jones on the team competing with him. Benson came into camp out of shape and didn’t work as hard last year. As a result, he looked heavy legged and performed poorly.

So Angelo knew that he needed someone good enough to push Benson and to be the team’s second back. In other words, he needed a very good backup. But drafting a first round running back would lead to the expectation that said running back would start, something Angelo does not believe was needed. The thought that Benson might not be capable of doing the job and that he’ll have to be, not just pushed, but actually replaced is just an infrequent disturbance. An unsettling notion that only passes occasionally in and out of the transom of the mind and that isn’t to be taken seriously. After all, if that were true, it would mean that Angelo had made a mistake by drafting Benson with the fourth overall pick in the 2005 draft. And that didn’t happen. So drafting a running back who would be expected to start with Benson still on the roster would have been a wasted pick.

So there you have yet another way of looking at the it. Man’s view of history leads to ill-chosen action that leads to more, as yet unknown, historical view points. Do I actually believe it all? Well, like all points of view, the way of the cynical b*st*rd leads to only part of the whole that is the truth. I certainly know that. But that didn’t keep me from posting it.

[Smirk]

It was suggested by Brad Briggs of the Chicago Sun-Times during the draft that the Bears might only keep two active quarterbacks on the roster with another stashed away on the practice squad.  It’s an interesting notion but undrafted free agent quarterback Nick Hill has told the Du Quoin Evening Call that this is not the case.

“It’s probably a good situation the Bears didn’t take me,” Hill admitted. “I’m going to Chicago to play for that third spot and they are planning to keep three active quarterbacks and at least one on the practice team. On Friday, I will be wearing an NFL uniform and can be called a Chicago Bear. They are gonna have to run me out of that place, because I am going to stick around until I learn everything.”

Of course, with the Bears likely to pick up at least one free agent quarterback who probably has yet to be released by another team, competition for one of those two open spots will still be stiff.  One just hopes that whoever fills them is good.  The Bears have a bad habit of needing that third quarterback to start and that might be particularly true with a rookie left tackle.