There’s heartbreak etched on Christian Benford’s face, but that’s only half the story

Christian Benford prefers to maintain a low profile, but his presence within the walls of One Bills Drive is formidable.

He says little but is often last to leave the Buffalo Bills’ practice field. He’s not satisfied to start as a former sixth-round pick or to shine among the NFL’s best cornerbacks through two weeks of the 2024 season. He’ll declare with quiet assurance that he’s driven by Lombardi Trophies, the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He will refute any notion that he has “made it” as an accusation.

Which is extraordinary considering how far he’s made it. But then you hear his story and see the tattoo on his right cheek, a heart with half its color drained forever, and you realize this is how he fills the void.

Benford avoided having his dreams — and maybe more — snuffed out in America’s most notorious streets. He was a middle-schooler, merely a child, who had already witnessed more death and felt more pain and gone to bed hungry more nights than anyone should in a lifetime when the mission manifested, a responsibility to drag his family out of West Baltimore’s ruthless snare.

His family lived in Bruce Manor apartments, a three-minute bike ride from a complex that became known by its tenants as Murder Mall around the time Benford was 10. Carlton C. Douglass Funeral Services, about 800 feet away from Bruce Manor, was used as the business front for Avon Barksdale’s drug gang on HBO’s “The Wire.”

“I’ve handled surges of young people I’ve known since they were in their mother’s womb,” mortician Carlton C. Douglass said. “To have their mother or father call me and tell them they needed my services because their child had been killed, that’s rough.”

“The Wire,” based on real people and events, ran from 2002-08 and was acclaimed for its unapologetically detailed portrayal of a city that last year recorded fewer than 300 homicides for just the first time in nearly a decade. There were almost 6,000 overdose deaths in the past six years.

“That was real life,” Douglass said. “The names of the dealers they used were real people. Some of them I knew. I served families of drug dealers who were killed.

“There are some good people in that neighborhood. Unfortunately, some of the good people are scared, and the problems overtake them. It’s a sad situation.”

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Benford saw dead bodies on the sidewalk, a few of them boys he ran around with or older kids he emulated. Some days, the basketball court across the street was unavailable because cops were marking spent shell casings or identifying another corpse. Asked recently about those days, he quickly counted up double-digit funerals — many closed-casket — before he stopped trying. People he knows in prison would require another long tally.

Six people, occasionally more, filled his family’s tiny, two-bedroom unit. Four kids would scrounge for loose change between the couch cushions, hoping for enough to buy one bag of chips from the vending machine for dinner.

Benford learned ways to make quick money, ways he’d rather wink about than explain. One day, in a shootout, a bullet almost dropped him. He’s convinced one eventually would have.

“People I grew up with died this year and the next year and the next and the next and the next,” Benford said. “Family, people I was close with.

“I like to take the burden of everybody’s pain because I feel like I can handle it. When my sisters and everybody are crying, I want them to come to me. ‘Let me be your shoulders.’”

Benford’s NFL journey could have — statistically, it should have — gotten derailed before it had a chance. Resentment and anguish consume even strong men. Yet he found ways to dig deeper. Still an early teenager, already with a dead brother Benford was too young to keep memories of, he reconciled to defeat that bleak future.

“So many close people were dying, and just seeing how we were living,” Benford said, “I was, like, ‘F— it. I’m all in.’”

He was too adventurous to stick with one activity, but his mother eventually channeled her little daredevil’s energy. Christel Perry wouldn’t let her son stop playing football because she knew what befell easily distracted West Baltimore boys. While his father, Jewell Benford, arranged and quietly supported Christian’s youth football pursuits in nearby Owings Mills, Md., Perry was the one who hectored him to stay focused.

“I had moments where, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too fond of football because I learned there were other ways to make money. That’s all I’m going to say on that,” Benford said. “But football became my mission.”

His family scraped up enough money to enroll him at Calvert Hall College High, a prestigious Catholic school in Towson, Md. It was a culture shock for Benford, who lasted there for his freshman and part of his sophomore years.

“It wasn’t my cup of tea,” Benford said, unable to suppress a laugh. “Can’t say too much, man. Me being dumb — my relationship with God wasn’t close to what it is today — and not tolerating disrespect, I didn’t care how old you was or your title.”

Jewell, a social worker who specializes in treating drug addiction, eventually got a better job with the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the family moved from Bruce Manor to the working-class suburb of Randallstown.

Benford played quarterback, receiver and every defensive back position for the Randallstown Rams. He intercepted 17 passes in two seasons and was invited to play in the prestigious Big 33 Football Classic between Maryland and Pennsylvania prospects.

Benford also drew a watchful eye that would change his life. Ola Adams was Villanova’s defensive backs coach.

“He’s a nice kid,” Adams said. “But there’s something that tells you he comes from a hard place.”

Struck by the mother-son dynamic, Adams pursued Benford diligently in part because of Perry’s involvement.

“His mother was a fierce advocate for him, a protector,” said Adams, now the safeties and defensive backs coach at Indiana University. “It was almost like a mother bear over her baby bear.”

Benford back then also ran the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds (4.53 seconds as he left Villanova) and processed complex coaching instructions on the spot. Villanova, an FCS school with three players drafted in 35 years before Benford arrived, found itself a serious ballplayer.

The Villanova coaching staff knew early on it had a special player in Christian Benford. (William Bretzger / Imagn Images)

By the time he showed up for college, Benford was faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The immature kid who couldn’t cope with Calvert Hall a couple years earlier didn’t recede, though, and Calvin was a blessing.

“I think my son saved me, to be honest,” Benford said. “Even though I had a mission, I was young and dumb. My son gave me more to consider.”

Calvin’s mother accommodated Benford’s move to Philadelphia so he could play football at Villanova. Benford majored in communications, minored in psychology and sociology. He started eight games as a true freshman in 2018, led the team with five interceptions and was named the Colonial Athletic Association’s rookie of the year.

“Whoa, where did this guy come from?” said linebacker Forrest Rhyne, a Villanova teammate who in 2022 played for the Indianapolis Colts. “As a freshman, you show up in the summer, go to camp and head right into the season. There’s no spring ball or offseason. That dude was making so many splash plays right away.”

After Benford’s sophomore year, he made the CAA Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll for the first of three times. COVID pushed his junior season into the spring of 2021, and while waiting for games and studying remotely, Benford emerged as an unquestioned leader.

The hungriest players got together for workouts at Benford’s urging. Rhyne lived 90 minutes away from Baltimore in Waynesboro, Pa., and would find a way to meet Benford on any patch of grass in between.

“That’s why football is so awesome,” Rhyne said. “The difference in our environments was unbelievable, but we were always connected by that pigskin.

“He’s such a disciplined and determined guy. I don’t know if that’s because of where he’s from or what he’s been through. I can’t tell you what drove him, but he was inspiring in how he saw the world.”

In the March 6 season opener at Stony Brook, Benford snagged an interception and returned a desperation onside kick 30 yards the other way to ice the victory.

Perry had been in the hospital, but shortly before kickoff, she had told Benford there was nothing to worry about. She assured him she was feeling better and would be home soon. After the game, Benford’s little brother called.

“I was in a good mood,” Benford said. “So I was messing around with him, whoopty-whoop. In the background I heard that certain cry where you know what it is.”

His mother died during the game. She was 57. Benford has never revealed why she was hospitalized or how she died.

“It broke me,” he said. “That was my spinal cord, my angel, my everything.”

Adams keeps Perry’s funeral card and a collage of photos in his car. For the past three years, when he senses Benford might be going through anything difficult, Adams will text a photo to remind him she’s still watching.

“I can see them laughing and joking as I think about them,” Adams said, his voice quaking. “She was real loving. She was always checking to make sure he was OK but she wanted me to coach him hard. She was at the games, so full of support.”

Broken as he was, Benford refused to let it affect his obligations to his Villanova teammates. He insisted on playing seven days later in the home opener against Rhode Island, returning to campus with the heart tattoo on his right cheek.

“Half of my heart is broken; it’s gone,” Benford said. “When I was younger, tattoos was my healing. I’m not a talker. I’m not big on expressing anything to anybody. So I would get a tat and you can read that.”

Benford has ink all over his 6-foot-1, 205-pound frame, but Perry had been adamant: no face tattoos. He believes now his mom would feel honored.

Villanova went 10-3 in Benford’s senior season, reaching the FCS quarterfinals. He intercepted seven passes, brought back one for a touchdown, broke up another 18 attempts and was voted FCS All-American.

Christian Benford had an interception and a pass defensed in Buffalo’s Week 2 win over the Miami Dolphins. (Perry Knotts / Associated Press)

The Bills drafted him in the sixth round, 185th overall. But they also drafted University of Florida cornerback Kaiir Elam, the son and nephew of former NFL defensive backs, 23rd overall. Benford appeared to face long odds to even make the 53-man roster out of training camp, but he had an edge.

“He always had higher responsibilities than everybody else did,” Rhyne said. “He always had to put other people first. There was no time for him to be an 18-year-old college football player. He had a son. When his mom died, I saw that sense of responsibility continue to heighten.

“He had to focus on being there for his family, his brothers, his sisters. He had to be a rock.”

Benford was the revelation of Buffalo’s 2022 offseason. Elam was the purer athlete but prone to costly lapses. Benford rarely made mistakes, was almost always in the right place and didn’t heap extra anxiety on the defensive staff, earning the trust of coach Sean McDermott as a rookie.

In the NFL’s curtain-raising Thursday night opener that year, Benford started against the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams. The next game, on “Monday Night Football,” he torpedoed hulking Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry for a 4-yard loss.

“When I saw that, I said, ‘Oh God! OK! You’re not scared of nothing!’ That dude was ready to go,” recalled Adams.

Benford broke his hand against the Miami Dolphins in Week 3 but missed only two games. An oblique injury in the Thanksgiving victory over the Detroit Lions put him on injured reserve. He started five of nine games he played as a rookie, intercepting a pass, breaking up four more and making 24 tackles.

Last year he re-established himself as the starter. In 16 games, including one in the postseason, he recorded two interceptions, eight breakups, three forced fumbles, a recovery and 55 tackles, three for losses. Benford was one of only 32 players last year with at least 40 solo tackles, 60 targets and double-digit passes defensed.

“C.B. is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met,” Bills linebacker Terrel Bernard said. “He’s a dude with unwavering confidence in himself and his abilities, which you need at corner. The ability to flush it and move on to the next play, it’s unlike anybody I’ve ever seen.”

Elam and Benford met at Baltimore/Washington International Airport right after they were drafted and have competed for playing time ever since, but there’s no jealousy about contract numbers, no rivalry about playing time.

Benford pushes Elam. They routinely work together on the practice field long after nearly all other Bills players and coaches have headed inside.

“He’s always down to work,” Elam said. “He’s just always trying to sharpen his tools. He’s the ultimate at wanting to get better.”

Elam had the best offseason of his career. Benford and eighth-year pro Rasul Douglas remained the starters, but Elam was pushing for snaps, and with Douglas in the final year of his contract, Buffalo’s 2022 rookie classmates might prove the cornerback tandem of the future.

“All-Pro way or no way, that’s what we say to each other,” Elam said. “We hold each other to a standard like that.”

“That’s why we stay after, always striving to get better. If he gets beat, I’m all on his head: ‘Next play! I know it won’t happen again!’ Even before practice, I’m telling him, ‘Be great today.’ He tells me the same thing. We’re passionate about it.”

So far, Benford and Douglas have been a sensational tandem while injuries have befallen top players around them, most notably Bernard and nickelback Taron Johnson. Buffalo’s safeties, Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin, never started together until this year. Benford and Douglas are the main reasons star rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. had one reception for 4 yards in the opener, and Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle together managed seven catches for 65 yards last Thursday.

But the quickest way to get side-eye from Benford is to ask about him having made it from sixth-round draft choice to starting in his NFL debut. That’s trivial to him in so many respects. He wants to conquer football’s individual and team pinnacles.

To him, satisfaction equals complacency, and that’s not what busted him out of Bruce Manor or Randallstown or even Villanova.

“It was my purpose to get here however I got here,” Benford said. “It was meant for me to keep betting on myself and shock the world.”

He has allowed himself one gesture of completion, although it comes with a caveat. On the back of his neck — he said a second face tattoo would be “too crazy” — is another, larger heart.

As Benford bowed his head and pulled down his collar, it became clear this heart had a bandage on it. Perhaps not fully recovered, but mending.

“My heart is fixed up,” Benford said. “You never want to heal from anything in life, but you need to understand it, learn how to feel it and keep prospering. Otherwise, it’ll crush you.”

(Photo: Jorge Lemus / Getty Images)