[CBFF] Benson gets another unappreciated rest

[mom2iancal]

Bears running back cools off during another long breather Sunday, and never 
got back on track 

Oct 15, 2007 @ 05:18 PM 

By Jay Taft 
RRSTAR.COM 

CHICAGO - 
Cedric Benson still waits for his breakout game. 

He thought Sunday was going to be the day. 

The Chicago Bears running back had a 109-yard performance against Green Bay 
in last year’s final regular-season game, and 101 in the Bears’ Week 2 win 
over Kansas City. 

But Benson, and the Bears coaching staff, feel like there’s still a lot more 
he can do. 

After he burst through a nice hole for 11-yard gain on his first touch 
Sunday against Minnesota and stutter-stepped for 12 yards on his third carry, he 
said he could feel himself "getting into the flow right away." 

It wasn’t long, however, before offensive coordinator Ron Turner "gave him a 
breather," and stuck to his philosophy of giving Adrian Peterson and Garrett 
Wolfe early chances. 

Benson then disappeared; if not for the rest of the game, at least for the 
next quarter. 

The third-year back out of Texas said the early benchings break up his 
"ability to get in a rhythm." 

"I’ve said that before," he added. 

Turner has heard it before. Yet he feels the team needs the change of pace, 
regardless of the situation. 

"Cedric ran the ball well, and he helped us set a lot of things up," Turner 
said. "We want to get Ced going, but we feel like we have to get the other 
guys out there, too. It was just a timing thing." 

After gaining 26 yards on his first four carries, Benson slowed up a bit. 
But he still had a 10-yard dash in the second quarter and wound up with 46 
yards on his first nine rushes (5.11 yards-per-carry average). 

He jogged out of the game at the 10:10 mark of the second quarter. Peterson 
and Wolfe spent the next quarter carrying the running back load. Benson’s 
next carry came with 12:58 remaining in the third quarter. 

"In the first couple of snaps of the game, we came off firing. But then we 
got in trouble, and it changes things," said Benson, who finished with 67 
yards on 18 carries in the 34-31 loss. "It’s no fun sitting on the sidelines 
watching, but I’m not the one making those decisions. I’m a player, so I want to 
be playing. But there are a lot of things involved in those calls, and that’
s the way it is." 

Benson has rushed for 370 yards on 119 carries this season, and although 
Chicago’s Peterson has just 95 yards on 22 carries and Wolfe has five rushes for 
six yards, Benson has been sitting out a chunk of the team’s second 
quarters. 

"It seems like I just can’t get into that multiple-carry kind of groove," 
Benson said. "The fact that I keep sitting out the second quarter is just 
another challenge thrown in front of me. If I don’t know what’s wrong, though, I 
don’t know how to fix it. It’s a tough position to be in."