Bengals’ Gruden: Benson ‘Has to Channel His Emotions’ at LinesMaker.com

Bengals’ Gruden: Benson ‘Has to Channel His Emotions’

After four games in Jay Gruden’s new offen­sive scheme, Ben­gals run­ning back Cedric Ben­son appears slightly miffed with his role.

Benson’s got­ten the ball plenty — his 77 car­ries are tied with Mau­rice Jones-Drew for sec­ond in the league — but The Cincin­nati Enquirer reported Wednes­day that he’s chaffed about shar­ing the spot­light on offense.

“Often times you want to express how you feel about some­thing but some­times peo­ple don’t want to receive it the right way or how they receive it could be con­fus­ing or cause some conflict,” Benson told the news­pa­per. “There’s guys who make those calls who put us in a posi­tion to win.”

That guy would be Gru­den. As offen­sive coor­di­na­tor, he’s seen all this before. Every­body wants the ball, but he’s not about to throw out the sys­tem to cater to Benson.

“When Bernard Scott comes in for him, (Ben­son) feels like we don’t love him any­more,” Gru­den said. “When we pass a cou­ple times on first down and we have to punt, he gets a lit­tle upset. Most great com­peti­tors are like that. He just has to chan­nel his emo­tions and under­stand we’re all try­ing to do the best and win the game. Whether he gets the ball 10 or 50 times — I don’t care as long as he wins the game.”

We’re not sold on Benson’s argu­ment here. While the league’s mov­ing away from the feature-back role, Ben­son — await­ing the appeal of his three-game sus­pen­sion — has been given a robust oppor­tu­nity this sea­son. But we’re sure we’ll be hear­ing from him again before long.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•