Benson has only had (2) 100 yard games in his 3 seasons in the NFL. 4 of the 5 starting offensive linemen on the 2004 Longhorns are currently playing in the NFL. A lot of good college backs would have picked up 165 yards on 33 carries running behind that line.
That's very true. Nobody could argue that Benson has not underachieved in his 3 years in the league. There are reasons to suggest that he might be worth trying to salvage however.
He was drafted in 2005 and held out for all of training camp which gave Thomas Jones the opportunity to get his career back on track. How many rookies backing up 1300+ yard backs lit the world on fire in the past couple of years? Like, one? (Jones-Drew in Jacksonville comes to mind).
67 attempts in 2005 got Benson a total of 272 yards and a 4.1 average. I'm inclined to believe that he got too few carries to ever truly get into any kind of rhythm.
His "big" rookie games consisted of 16, 14, and 12 touches. In every other game he was doing 2-3 carries a game. It's hard to break through when you don't get the touches and didn't go to camp.
I'm just saying that the man got off on the wrong foot in Chicago and a starter emerged in front of him before he could make it right.
So we go to 2006 and what do we see? Thomas Jones throwing up another 1200 yards, a 4.1 average and Cedric Benson (also averaging 4.1 a carry) unable to displace him. This begs the question "How many guys do lose their starting job a year after posting 1335 yards and a 4.3 average?"
If you're the bears how do you justify benching Thomas Jones after his 2005 performance? If you had known he was going to do that would you have even bothered to draft Cedric Benson that year? Sure Jones got them just under a thousand yards in 2004 but the Bears have been teased by "almost-franchise" backs ever since Walter Payton retired.
They got a thousand yards from Anthony Thomas a couple of times, James Allen once, Hell even Curtis Enis got within sniffing distance of 1K in 1999. I'm sure they picked Benson thinkin that Jones was just another in a long line of almosts. All that changed when Jones began really producing however in 2005-2006
From their perspective in 2006 they have a highly regarded rookie not getting banged up as much as he might be and they have Jones still running the ball strong enough. Grossman is kind of funky but they're a running team and they get almost 2000 yards on the ground just between Jones and Benson.
They go to the Super Bowl and lose.
2007 sees Thomas Jones headed out of town (why not, Benson averaged the same number of yards per carry, he's younger, and you have a lot of money tied up in him) and Benson takes the starting role. At the exact same time that this happens their QB situation goes to hell in a handbasket and the Bears experience a huge drop-off in their passing game. Other teams key on the run (because that's how you shut the bears down) and their run production drops as a result.
The only other consistent ball carrier for them over that time period was Adrian Peterson (the lesser) and he had averaged 5.1 and 4.1 yards per carry in the previous two seasons but he also fell to 3.4 yards a carry in 2007.
I think it just wasn't a good time to be trying to run the football in Chicago once the QB play went down the toilet. Everybody has to have some semblence of balance to their offense (everybody but Earl Campbell I guess) and so the Bears decide Benson hasn't done it for them and they draft Matt Forte. Benson starts screwing up and the Bears make the decision to release him. In the current NFL climate where bad seeds are starting to really bring heat on franchises this decision is understandable I guess. I think it was a bit hasty but hey, maybe they feel like they have it covered with Forte.
Looking at the three years objectively (or at least trying to) and then taking into consideration the excellent decision making process they have displayed in recent times where their offense is concerned what makes anyone think they necessarily got this decision right? These guys can't solve something as simple as deciding whether or not Rex Grossman should be their QB for all those years and yet we just assume that they know what they're doing with the RB's?
You could make a good argument that they've been wrong more often than they've been right over the past 8 years where RB talent has been concerned. It's a half-empty/half-full kind of argument but still, I think they gave up on Benson too soon.
