Cedric Benson will not be suspended three games as some suspected after last offseason’s arrest in Austin. Instead, the Bengals star running back will miss one game, against Seattle, following Cincinnati’s bye week.

I’ve always maintained that Ced B. should sell his crib in Lake Travis and leave the Austin area because he just seems to always get in to trouble here. I can’t recall him getting arrested in his other two home cities of Chicago and Cincinnati and he has to know that the latest arrest cost him any leverage in signing a long-term extension with the Bengals.

Hopefully he will treat this suspension reduction as a wakeup call. The Bengals are one of the league’s feel-good stories. At 4-2, they are are in the thick of the AFC North race with the league’s second ranked defense. More important, the future appears bright after much maligned owner Mike Brown traded distruntled, semi-retired QB Carson Palmer to Oakland for a pair of draft picks.

Benson is on pace to run for 1,100 yards for the second straight year and it’s obvious he has found a home in Cincy. His two goals should be to keep pounding the rock and most important, to keep his nose clean. The organization has stood by him and now he should reward that loyalty by playing effective, drama-free football for the rest of his stay there.