[CBFF] Drunk or victimized, Benson has no Bears future :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Jay Mariotti

[Kenny Claxton]

I thought that was the rule also.

On 5/8/08, mom2iancal <senzigx4 at rucls.net> wrote:
>
> Hey!  I thought we weren't allowed to post any of "his" articles here!!  I
> did a year or two ago and got blasted for it!!!    LOL
>
> teri
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Shannon
> To: post at chicagobearsfanforum.com
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 4:30 AM
> Subject: [CBFF] Drunk or victimized, Benson has no Bears future :: CHICAGO
> SUN-TIMES :: Jay Mariotti
>
> http://www.suntimes.com/sports/mariotti/938561,mariotti050808.article#
> Drunk or victimized, Benson has no Bears future
>
> May 8, 2008
> BY JAY MARIOTTI Sun-Times Columnist
>
> Who hasn't been there, on a boat with beer and bikinied beauties? But when
> Cedric Benson chose to throw a party on his new motorboat last weekend, at a
> lake in his native Texas, he had to know trouble could await him. Wasn't
> Lake Travis a popular drinking spot outside party-daffy Austin? Hadn't he
> been pulled over for safety checks several times in his boat? Weren't local
> police concerned about numerous boating-related fatalities, many fueled by
> alcohol?
>
> And wasn't he the problematic Cedric Myron Benson, the man-child who cried
> tears of bitterness on draft day, the underachieving running back pummeled
> by issues and dogged by controversy ever since the Bears selected him with
> the No. 4 pick in 2005?
>
>
> I'm not suggesting he hide in his house, coil into a ball and not come out
> until training camp. But sometimes, when life is running you down and the
> karma isn't fair, the smarter option is to find a means of entertainment
> that doesn't involve beer, boating and watchful cops. If the Lower Colorado
> River Authority had been cracking down on boaters of all sorts, why would
> Benson, with his NFL career at a crossroads and the Bears sending a message
> with the second-round drafting of Matt Forte, allow beer on his 30-foot boat
> and turn himself into a target?
>
> How dumb can you be, Ced? Where's your better judgment? Just as you don't
> run straight ahead into a swarm of five Green Bay Packers, you don't tempt
> fate in a lively part of the lake -- Devil's Cove -- where you obviously
> aren't liked and you thought the boat police were picking on you.
>
> It certainly wouldn't surprise me if Benson, a black man in the South, was
> roughed up by the authorities as he and at least one friend on the boat
> claim. But that should be neither here nor there in regard to his Bears
> future. Even if legitimate evidence surfaces to suspect police brutality, it
> shouldn't be a factor in whether he's retained by Halas Hall. Before his
> arrest on charges of drunken boating and resisting arrest, Benson was a
> whiny, soft, insanely overpriced back who did more to sabotage the Bears
> last season than any combination of bad quarterbacks. Just because a debate
> is raging over what actually happened last Saturday evening, in the Hill
> County near Austin, doesn't mean a sympathy party should break out in
> Chicago and across a football nation.
>
> What I wrote weeks ago unequivocally still stands: The Bears must cut their
> losses, acknowledge their mistake on Benson and move on. I say this not only
> because he's a flop on the field -- as general manager/Benson enabler Jerry
> Angelo finally began to admit after drafting Forte last month -- but because
> a franchise inundated by criminal behavior and scandals can't afford another
> without developing a wretched identity as the Cincinnati Bengals of the
> North. During their safety inspection, the authorities say Benson appeared
> drunk, had bloodshot eyes, refused a breath test and failed a
> boater-specific sobriety test with a "cocky," "combative," "insulting,"
> attitude that included profanity. They say he refused to come ashore,
> forcing them to handcuff him and blast him with pepper spray. If true,
> Benson would become the latest Bear to face the wrath of NFL commissioner
> Roger Goodell, whose eight-game suspension of Tank Johnson last season led
> to his eventual departure. Johnson's lawyers-guns-and-money saga was
> supposed to lead to behavioral reform at Halas Hall, but the hits kept
> coming -- including the night Lance Briggs fled the scene of his car crash
> at 3 a.m., followed by his recent admission that he has perfomed only a wee
> portion of 120 hours of required community service.
>
> Benson would avoid league punishment if he indeed wasn't drunk and didn't
> resist arrest. "I was not intoxicated. There was alcohol on the boat, and
> others were enjoying themselves, but I wasn't drunk," he told the Sun-Times
> earlier this week, adding that he was cooperative throughout the ordeal. His
> description of how he allegedly was dragged to a car, which hauled him to
> jail, is chilling.
>
> "They kicked my feet out from under me and slammed my face down," he said.
> "They had a hose and were running it over my face. They were choking me and
> stuff, not with their hands but with the hose
>
> in my face. I couldn't breathe. I don't know if they did that because of the
> pepper spray, but I didn't ask them to put the hose in my face."
>
> Obviously, someone here is lying, either Benson or the arresting officers.
> If we ever learn the actual truth, it will be inside a courtroom in several
> weeks, which is about the last soap opera needed by a franchise that is
> free-falling into the league's lower ranks after a Super Bowl appearance 15
> months ago. The Bears can wish Benson well in his court case, but they
> cannot have this mess in their lives. They've given him too many chances to
> succeed to watch him fail again. They need a new running back. He needs a
> new lease on life.
>
> It's interesting that a friend of Benson, 22-year-old Elizabeth Cartwright,
> is rushing to his defense publicly. In an interview with Channel 5, she said
> Benson wasn't drunk, would have passed a breathalyzer test and was unfairly
> targeted by the authorities. "Cedric got off the boat voluntarily, you know,
> stepped from his boat to the other one and he was fine. He didn't stumble,
> there was nothing wrong with him," Cartwright said of the field sobriety
> test. A little while later, she said she heard shrieks of horror.
>
> "We heard Cedric scream like he's in pain, and he screamed for his mom. And
> it was horrible because I've never heard him scream like that," she said.
>
> But when beer is on the boat during a party that went for hours, Benson will
> have to prove to his doubters that he had only a beer or two. If his record
> was clean, maybe he could be granted the benefit of the doubt. But the Bears
> drafted him with the knowledge of two episodes during his productive
> University of Texas career: (1) Searching for what he said was a stolen TV
> set, Benson received an eight-day jail sentence in 2003 for misdemeanor
> trespassing after forcing himself into a residence; and (2) A year earlier,
> he was busted for drug and alcohol violations before both charges were
> dropped.
>
> Are they picking on him in Austin? Maybe. That's his problem, though. The
> Bears have enough problems to keep taking on his. "Any time we're talking
> about one of our players getting arrested, you're disappointed in it," said
> coach Lovie Smith, whose tenure is being marred by a relentless run of
> incidents.
>
> We talk about the quarterback hex in this town. What about the running back
> jinx? Turns out Rashaan Salaan was stoned during his bouts with fumbleitis.
> Turns out Curtis Enis had a screw loose.
>
> Now we have Cedric The Entertainer, party animal, sinking fast on his
> personal Titanic.
> --
Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of
> immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.
 - Edith Wharton
>
>
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