DaytonDailyNews.com

CLEVELAND — Standing in the middle of the post-game dressing room — minus his jersey and shoulder pads, his bared arms covered with scabbed-over nicks, fresh gashes and flecks of white sideline paint — Cedric Benson was asked which had been tougher:

Continually getting hit on a numbingly cold day when the windchill hit 15 degrees below zero? Or landing on a Cleveland Stadium field coated in ice and frozen solid?

"Oh, it was worse hitting the ground," the Cincinnati Bengals running back said. "You hated to fall because the ground was so hard. Those were some hard, hard falls out there."

And yet — in record fashion — he kept getting up.

Carrying 38 times for a 171 yards — both career highs — he led the Bengals to a 14-0 victory over the floundering Browns on Sunday, Dec. 21.

Benson prevailed, he said, because he had endured a much harder fall earlier this season. Not on a frozen field, but in the warmth of his home back in Austin, Texas.

That's where he spent the first four Sundays of this NFL season.

Four seasons after being a first-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears, the former Texas Longhorn great was out of the game and treated like a pariah.

After missing his rookie training camp in a contract dispute, he'd never felt the embrace of many Bears teammates, some of whom were said to have purposely tried to hurt him with their hits in practice.

Then came his public criticism of coach Lovie Smith and finally a pair of DUI arrests — he later was cleared in both — this spring. The Bears cut him in April and no one bothered with him until the Bengals signed him Sept. 30.

"On Sundays, I'd sit by myself on the game room floor upstairs and watch the (NFL) games," he said. "With everything I went through — being singled out for wrongdoings that I was innocent of — I could feel myself getting angry and thinking, 'Why am I not out there?'

"That's why I watched alone. I didn't want to ever show that to anyone. I didn't want to be rude to someone. Sometimes people would call me during the games and try to lift me up — saying 'You'll be out there soon,' — but they could tell by my voice I didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted it to happen."

Now it has.

Two Sundays ago against Washington, he accounted for 161 offensive yards. Against the Browns, he already had 118 of his 171 by halftime. Consequently, the Bengals — who'd been 1-11-1 — have won two straight.

"A guy like Cedric is wonderful for an offensive line," said Bengals guard Bobbie Williams. "We're built for the 'grrrrrrr' in the trenches and he's a real trenches runner. I respect him as a back and even more for the person he is."

Coach Marvin Lewis touched on the same: "If he ever gets upset, he comes and apologizes ... because he really is a good kid. I'm glad we've got him."

After the game, Benson made a point of quietly thanking each of his linemen.

"Considering what I'd been through and what had been said, I was nervous and confused when I joined this team. I wanted to make a big impact — to be successful on the field and off — and I came to realize as much as you hate for bad things to happen, they can make you better.

"They taught me to be a better man ... to handle things and stay positive. They really helped me to do things I hadn't been able to do before."

Like getting up again and again, no matter how hard the fall.