We wrote early Monday morning that the Cincinnati Bengals were open to contact talks with the representatives of Cedric Benson. All of you have sung the same song: Get it done.

Apparently the contract is closer to being closed than any of us think. According to Bengals play-by-play voice Brad Johansen, the Bengals are offering to rework the final year of his current contract and extending it three seasons, which would give Benson roughly $16-20 million over the next four years. Technically, it's a three-year extension. Not so technically, we'll have Benson through 2013.

Nothing is official and the primary media darlings have yet to chime in the contract. There are assumptions at this point to be made. Is this merely an offer from the Bengals and Benson's representatives have yet to respond? Is this the foundation of a verbal agreement and the details still need to be worked out? Either way, you get the feeling that something could be done by the end of the week.