Lance Reveals all

There’s a lot of angst about Benson, but most are based on hindsight. A few points to consider, before we know what we do now:

1. Many teams were moving to tandem RBs. The league was moving in that direction, and the Bears were one of them. Several times this has worked well, with the incumbent embracing the youngster, like Fred Taylor & Maurice Jones Drew, Adrian Peterson & Chester Taylor, Jerome Bettis & Willie Parker, to name a few. Obviously the holdout and Benson’s dismissal of Jones kept that from going forward according to plan. But it wasn’t a bad idea to begin with.

2. Jones’ best seasons as a Bear came after Benson was drafted. His first season Jones averaged 4 ypc, and after Benson was drafted, he averaged 4.3 and 4.1. It may not seem like a big difference, but he also played more games, and went over 1000 yards after Benson. A lot of fans got the idea that Jones was motivated by Benson being there, and I think that’s true.

3. Jones requested to be traded after the 2005 season. Angelo made a promise to Jones that if he gave the Bears his best effort in the 2006 season, he would trade him to a team that wanted him as a feature back. Jones held up his end of the bargain, and Angelo kept his word. This was discussed in public by Angelo, and I have a hard time knocking Angelo for being true to his word in a time that most GMs wouldn’t be. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I think Angelo did the right thing – he kept Jones for another season and acted honorably.

I hate that Jones had to leave, but it could have worked well with a Jones/Benson combo. It ended up being a bad situation. Things don’t always go the way they should, but this wasn’t doomed from the beginning.
Just my opinion