updated 8:27 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2005

LAKE FOREST, Ill. - With a five-year contract in hand and an ear-to-ear grin crossing his face, running back Cedric Benson joined the Chicago Bears on Monday and put a drawn-out negotiation behind him.

The fourth overall pick and the last first-rounder to sign, Benson called it “a great relief” and said it “feels good to be here” during a news conference at the team’s practice facility.

Terms of the contract were not revealed, but the Bears reportedly had offered between $17 million and $17.5 million guaranteed on a deal that could pay $35 million.

The sides agreed to terms Sunday, ending a 36-day impasse. That happened just three days after an impromptu meeting between Benson and general manager Jerry Angelo at the practice facility — and less than two weeks after Angelo released a statement saying the team had made its final offer and would start pulling money off the table.

Thursday’s meeting was not a negotiating session, but it might have sped up the process.

“This did take a lot longer than what we had anticipated,” Angelo said. “We never really found that common ground. Usually, you find that common ground at some point the first couple weeks. We didn’t really find anything that we agreed upon for quite some time. That created the long holdout.”

Benson took a conditioning test Monday but did not practice. Coach Lovie Smith said he will not play in Thursday’s preseason game against Cleveland and is questionable for the season-opener Sept. 11 at Washington.

A four-year starter at Texas, Benson ranks sixth on the NCAA’s and second on the Longhorns’ all-time rushing lists with 5,540 yards. He was the fifth back in NCAA history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in each of his four seasons and his 64 touchdown runs rank third all-time.

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Benson was expected to challenge starter Thomas Jones for minutes, but the Bears’ plans changed as the impasse dragged on. For now, he’s third on the depth chart behind Adrian Peterson, and in his own words, starting “from the bottom.”

He described the negotiations as “two people each trying to get what they want and each side being pretty stubborn.”

Asked if he got what he wanted, Benson paused.

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