Workhorse Benson gaining measure of respectTuesday, August 1, 2006By Gene ChamberlainStaff writer--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bears coach Lovie Smith pointed out Monday night that respect is earned in the NFL.If the play of the Bears' defense during Monday night's scrimmage was any indication, Cedric Benson is well on his way to earning his teammates' respect despite rather difficult circumstances."I think he's being accepted more by his teammates," Smith said. "Each day they see him come out here and they're starting to see what type of player he can be."Defensive players showed Benson a little more respect in Monday night's practice. Rather than pop him with their shoulders as he broke through the line or hit him downfield near the sideline as they had done the previous two practices, they tried to stay out of his way in running drills. Tackling ball carriers to the ground is not allowed in practice to avoid injuries.Charles Tillman and Chris Harris each went well out of their way to avoid hitting Benson too hard. There was only one collision between Benson and a defender—early in practice he ran into linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer with a shoulder."Nobody cares what you've done in the past," Smith said. "They're not really looking at your college stats. You have to come up here, but good players normally find a way to get accepted by their teammates."And that's what Cedric has done. We've given him the football and he's had a lot of opportunities to show what type of player he is."The difficult circumstances surrounding Benson are that injured/demoted running back Thomas Jones was one of the more popular players on the team. At first, when defenders were taking cracks at Benson, it seemed he might be viewed with some disdain."It's only his second year," center Olin Kreutz said. "It takes a lot to earn people's respect, it takes awhile for people to have trust in you, faith that you're going to do your job at all."It takes awhile no matter who you are. I didn't feel I bonded with guys until I was in my fifth, sixth year. So it always takes awhile."Besides showing he can run and both deliver and take a hit, Benson is showing more ability in the passing game. He's been catching passes in the flat as well as down the field without a lot of difficulty."I can recall back in the (June) OTAs (workouts), one of his worst days was just based on him not being able to catch the football," Smith said. "He's worked awfully hard trying to get his hands down."Again, I think he's a complete player."Benson did fumble during early drills. However, he's also carrying the ball more often than most backs will in training camp because Jones is injured and running back Tony Holllings was cut."We want him to get tired, really, in training camp," Smith said. "We started off with a couple more running backs, so we're down two running backs right now."When you have young players like that they need every rep they can get and that's what Cedric is doing."Benson has backed off his prediction of 1,700 rushing yards earlier this year — somewhat, anyway."That was just some fun stuff," he said about his minicamp prediction. "I mean it's back there, yeah. Once we get close to it, I'll start bringing it back up again."Putting on the blitzBenson's biggest challenge remains picking up the blitz in pass blocking. He realizes he didn't get much valuable pass blocking experience at this in college because he didn't need to worry about protecting the Texas Longhorns' quarterback."They blitzed, but we had Vince Young back there," he said. "If I missed a blitz, he made (the rusher) miss, so I just picked up the next guy."
HTH.
