Cedric Benson’s NFL career has been a rollercoaster ride. The former University of Texas star was drafted by the Chicago Bear’s with the fourth overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. Expectations were immensely high for Benson upon joining the Bears, but those expectations were never realized. Cedric rushed for only 1,593 and played in only 25 games in his three seasons in Chicago. He was released in 2008 for lack of production on the field and bad off the field behavior. Some said that the release would be the end of what once looked to be a very promising NFL career, but Benson was given a second chance by who else but my hometown Cincinnati Bengals.

Little did anyone know at the time that Cedric would take that second chance and use it to revitalize his career. In 2009, Benson rushed for 1,251 yards and six touchdowns. His dominant 2009 campaign helped the Bengals take the AFC-North crown and earn a playoff spot. As if that wasn’t sweet enough in week six Benson’s old team the Chicago Bears came to the Queen City to play the Bengals. The Bears were treated to a 45-10 beat down, Benson ran for 189 yards and a touchdown. Suddenly, Cedric Benson’s name was being mentioned as an upper echelon back, a player that was worthy of a high fantasy football selection.

In a career like Cedric’s though that has been filled with ups and downs things can’t always continually go up.

Benson was arrested on Tuesday and charged with misdemeanor assault. He allegedly punched a bar employee in the face nearly a month ago at Annie’s West Bar in Austin, Texas. According to the Austin police affidavit, Cedric Benson was at Annie’s on May 30th when he got into a fight with a bar patron. The fight left the bar patron with a cut lip and as a result Benson was asked to leave the bar. When Cedric was asked to leave the bar employees say he got verbally abusive and once Benson got outside he complained to people passing by that "all these white boys are ganging up on me and kicking me out."

Cedric’s attorney Sam Bassett is encouraging people not to jump to conclusions. He said Benson "looks forward to telling his side of the story at the appropriate time."

Regardless of what Cedric Benson’s side of the story is Cedric certainly didn’t need an off the field incident during an off season where he is coming off the greatest season of his NFL career. A perfect scenario would have been for Cedric to lay low in the offseason work hard and continue to put up great numbers in 2010. That is not the case though and this will definitely be yet another black eye on the character of Cedric Benson and the already much maligned Cincinnati Bengals organization. No punishments have been handed out yet at this time by the league or the Bengals. When asked about the incident NFL spokesman Bryan McCarthy said "we are looking into it."

Another interesting aspect to this story is the comparisons it draws to the Vince Young strip club fight that occurred a couple of weeks ago. Both Benson and Young are former Texas Longhorn football stars. Benson and Young were both coming off excellent seasons, in which they revitalized their fading careers. Finally, Young and Benson were both arrested in their home state of Texas.

Off the field problems are never positive when trying to resurrect your football career and rebuild your image. Hopefully Benson and Young included can stay out of the trouble for the rest of the offseason and continue to play well in 2010.