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Cedric Benson has passed away - RIP 🤘​​​​​​​

TexEx15

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LonghornSean

LonghornSean 4,072

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Piece on his legacy with the Bengals

 

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Bengaldom Mourns Benson

 

Hobson_Geoff

Geoff Hobson

SENIOR WRITER

 
 

Cincinnati Bengals running back Cedric Benson (32) in action against the Chicago Bears in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

AP Photo/Ed Reinke
Cedric Benson ran through the Bears back in '09 in his signature game.

Cedric Benson, the brutish running back who bridged two eras of Bengals play-off football with three straight 1,000-yard seasons, died over the weekend from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident.

Benson, 36, revived his career in Cincinnati when it ran aground after three turbulent seasons in Chicago. The Bears took the Texas legend with the fourth pick in the 2005 draft, but he surfaced with the Bengals early in the 2008 season with a difficult marches-to-a-different-drummer reputation. Yet given a clean slate by head coach Marvin Lewis and his staff, he filled the void left by Rudi Johnson and helped the Bengals march into contention with a 2009 AFC North title under quarterback Carson Palmer and a 2011 Wild Card berth under rookie quarterback Andy Dalton.

During that 4-11-1 season in 2008 without the injured Palmer, back-up quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick raved about what a good Benson teammate had been in the locker room for the first signal that Benson was bowling over perception and putting it on its head.

He helped set the tone for the next season during a game in Pittsburgh when one of his runs knocked off the helmet of Steelers Hall-of-Fame safety Troy Polamalu. In ’09 the Bengals stunned the pundits when they knocked off the Super Bowl champion Steelers and swept the division with a re-built offense held together by Benson’s first 1,000-yard season on a career-high 1,251 yards. He finished it all off bulling to a franchise post-season record of 169 yards at Paul Brown Stadium in the Wild Card loss to the Jets.

“Guy was relentless competitor. Great player,” texted Andrew Whitworth on Sunday as the former Bengals left tackle recalled how he took Benson home with him the day he signed in Cincinnati. “Never forget how determined he was to prove who he was as a player and help us win football games. He never wavered from that. He was always a loyal guy and a good teammate. Thoughts with his family and friends at this time.”

Benson followed up his career year with 1,111 yards and when the offense was revamped again 2011 with the rookies Dalton and A.J. Green, he offered a vet-steady 1,067. Fumble problems late in the season led to his exit in an offseason the Bengals signed BenJarvus Green-Ellis. His career ended in Green Bay the next season with a foot injury.

“I can still see that smile. He loved to play,” said Jim Anderson, his Bengals running backs coach. “That’s the thing about the great runners. They love it … He loved contact, now. If you tackled him, you had to think about tackling him the next time.

Anderson coached the Bengals backs for 29 seasons and Benson was the last of his three to have three straight 1,000-yard seasons, joining Johnson and Corey Dillon. Benson was determined to get a fresh start and Anderson was just as determined to give it to him.

“You don’t make calls. You don’t go back and talk to people who coached him,” Anderson said. “You start fresh. You start from the beginning. I was thinking about this today. He was 36. When we got him, he was a young man. You just didn’t think about him like that because he had played pro baseball and he’d been in the league. But he was a young guy. He opened up and he accepted our coaching and he gave us a boost. No question about that. He gave us a boost.”

Benson’s signature game was his revenge of the Bears in “The Benson Bowl,” on Oct. 25, 2009 at PBS. Against his old club Benson banged for 189 yards on 37 carries in a 45-10 victory that said it all. But Anderson recalls how he was one of the first players he remembers to go to great lengths to take care of himself.

 

“That meant a lot to him and we knew it meant a lot to him,” Anderson said. “The thing is, Cedric was a practice guy. He didn’t shy away from it at all. And Fridays were a day you didn’t have to work out, but he’d go in there and he’d do these unorthodox workouts. And he’d been eating that seaweed and all these different drinks He was doing that way before anybody else.”

Before Sunday’s practice, Dalton took time to remember a guy that also served as a bridge for him. From youth to the pros as his first NFL bell cow that was such a stabilizer for those young gun Bengals of ’11.

“I grew up watching him. I knew of him when he was at Midland (in high school) and I knew of him when he was at Texas,” said Dalton, a native of Katy, Texas. “I followed his whole career. He had the best college career you could have. Then to play with him, that was pretty cool. A guy that had been through it. A reliable back. He was always great to me, a good teammate.”

Dalton could only shake his head.

“Sad,” he said.

 

Anderson, thinking of the 25-year-old Benson, found it tough to think of him gone 11 years later.

“Once he bought into our system, he was like a flower. He just blossomed,” Anderson said. “He gave us an element we didn’t have. We had complementary guys, but Cedric gave us a missing element. He was a good man. He was one of my guys and it hurts. Life is too short.”

 

 

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Hornius Emeritus
Hornius Emeritus

SIAP:  Mack Brown talks about Cedric Benson.     

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Hornius Emeritus

SIAP:  Oh, man ... Will Matthews interview just tears me up:    

Rustic Horn
Rustic Horn

Damn...RIP Ced.

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sidis

sidis 9,990

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8 minutes ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

I couldn't find it, but somewhere I remember a picture of Ced and Ricky together.   Maybe Ceds freshman year.   Ricky with his long dreads and Ced with his short ones.  

it was in 2001 after the houston game.  i've got it somewhere.

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Hornius Emeritus

Hornius Emeritus 12,780

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6 minutes ago, Pimphand said:

Back when Ivan Williams was our starter and Mack was too scared to let Cedric play against OU because he was a true freshman.  I'm pretty sure Cedric started every game after that except for the suspension.

 

This is an untrue characterization of what happened and why. 

Edited by Hornius Emeritus
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Pimphand

Pimphand 6,266

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4 minutes ago, ultimaton said:

Lost my brother-in-law the same way a few years ago. He was cruising along on his bike and a distracted driver pulled out right and in front of him. Just so fucking senseless.

Really feeling for the families of Ced and his passenger right now.

I lost two family members in similar circumstances in the span of 71 days back in the summer of 2016.

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Helobious

Helobious 9,755

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14 minutes ago, thestud said:

2000 Westlake was a very good, very complete team. Lee didn’t have shit except for Cedric and Eric Winston. Lee had zero business even being in that game, but they had Cedric and Westlake didn’t.

Yes, that team that won 3 consecutive state titles didn’t even belong on the same field as Westlake.

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Zone Read

Zone Read 299

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I remember screaming along 2222 early one Sunday morning on my brand new 1984 Honda 750VFR Interceptor.  I took a turn a bit too fast and even dragging my knee I drifted into the oncoming lane.  Fortunately for me there was little traffic there at 7am back in the 80s and I was able to correct, but I remember thinking how easy it would be to die on that road if you overestimated your abilities, which I did.  It's a dangerous road for so many reasons and this tragedy is just another sad example of that.  

Cedric definitely marched to the beat of his own drum.  A great Longhorn. He will be missed.  RIP and Hook em Ced.

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Lhorn

Lhorn 5,080

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No! I’m so upset about this. Worst news I have received in a long time.

Same here. Hitting hard. My wife is not an alumnus but she’s been a fan by proxy and was in the Rosebowl with me when Ced played his last game as a Longhorn. Had to leave the room after I told her he died because I didn’t think my kids would understand their dad crying about the death of a young man he’s never met.
His reputation to casual fans was so tainted by the TV and DWI problems that it’s great to hear former Longhorn and Bengal teammates talk about what a great teammate and loyal guy he was.
It was a different time in Texas football but it seems amazing that we were able to keep him on the 40 Acres for 4 years.
Generational talent. Just a hard nosed, brutal, punishing runner.
I hope and am confident that Herman and CDC will find an appropriate way to honor Ced. Unfortunately I won’t be down there until Okie lite game so I’ll have to watch on TV


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Pimphand

Pimphand 6,266

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3 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Ced always infuriated Aggy and their fans. We will miss you 32

The best was when he scored the 35 yard TD to put us up by 30 then broke out the can of spinach and went popeye on them in 2003 which is captured at the end of the above video.

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Pimphand

Pimphand 6,266

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6 minutes ago, MAUFRAIS said:

I feel like I remember his last ever carry for Texas being pretty important considering how close Mangum’s field goal ended up being.

Here is the final carry I'm trying to embed it at the correct time but it is at the 2:47 mark

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horn4life

horn4life 3,829

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How does a thread about one of our beloved former players become a critique of high school teams of years gone by? 

My sympathies are with his family , the families of the girl that also passed away, and those closest to both of them.  A terrible tragedy. God's speed.

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Ignatius

Ignatius 4,125

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Really too bad Ced and Derrick Johnson couldn’t have been a year younger.  They (and Simms/Redding the year before) really helped put the recruiting machine in motion that got us the national title the next year.

 

Can you imagine that 2005 team with CB and DJ?

 

RIP big man, and fuck Mojo!

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