Former Texas tailback and top National Football League prospect Cedric Benson will certainly look different when he sits in the green room, walks up the stage, shakes commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s hand and holds up his new jersey on draft day.

No, he has not gotten stronger in the weight room, gotten negatively heavier or grown an eye in the back of his head. However, when the nation’s best college running back in 2004 puts on his new team’s hat, nobody will see his dreadlocks coming out of the back.

No, the NFL does not have a policy on hair length, so why would this person feel the need to voluntarily cut his hair after going through four years at the University of Texas comfortable with the way he looked?

The reason apparently has everything to do with what hat he’ll be putting on April. Scouts have told Benson that with the San Francisco 49ers insisting on taking a quarterback, it seems like a logical certainty that the Miami Dolphins will make him their new feature back. This idea concerned Benson because of the last star out of South Beach, Ricky Williams.

Williams was the idol of Benson and was mostly the reason he decided to become a Longhorn. However, realizing the media’s, fans’ and scouts’ perceptions of Williams, Benson changed his image. Maybe ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper can explain to him that hair is everything.

First of all, Benson needs to realize that members of the media are smarter than Benson’s giving us credit for. We don’t perceive dreadlocks as bad. Cedric, the comparisons will only appear in print, television and radio if we find marijuana along with holistic medicine in your locker while you model a hobo beard during training camp and hire a rapper as your agent. Benson is his own person and should be treated as such.

I don’t see Williams when I see Benson. Personally, I see an individual person who possibly runs like Earl Campbell. However, my question is “what does Benson see when he looks in the mirror?”

Making accommodations is a mature act that you don’t see out of future millionaire draft prospects who usually dictate when they hear their name called and by who. However, this was an unnecessary act that shouldn’t have happened.

I can’t help but feel like the idea was formed by people who certainly are not Cedric Benson. If he felt this was necessary, he was wrong. If it happened because of other suits, Benson needs to realize that he’s the one who will make these people rich and not the other way around.

The advertising market didn’t cater to former Chicago Bulls guard and current college basketball analyst Jay Williams after he changed his name to avoid confusion to the Jayson Williams that shot and killed his limo driver. The commercial market ignored Jay because he couldn’t throw a beach ball into Lake Michigan, and his motorcycle joy ride into a tree didn’t help either.

If everything is accurate in the scouting reports, Benson is going to be an all-pro tailback that you can build an offense around. His play on the field will probably make Miami fans and teammates forget about Ricky Williams (won’t take much, all he has to do is live up to his word and not quit on them). He’s going to leave defenders in his dust, not similar to the pot smoke Williams left Miami in. So if Benson liked his style, grow the dreads back by draft day. Unlike players like Randy Moss, this is an employee who’s not hurting anybody except possibly how he sees himself.