Michael Bennett knew the questions would come and they did. But, the way he addressed them may have been just as impressive as his time in the 40-yard dash.

Bennett faced a barrage of questions including those from VU concerning the character issue -- stemming from an incident with a former girlfriend who has accused Bennett of making harassing phone calls and kicking in her door.

To some teams, it had all the earmarks of a Lawrence Phillips case. Phillips, who is out of football after being bypassed by several teams early in the draft before landing with Dick Vermeil and the St. Louis Rams, had a history of domestic assault with females, but Bennett's story is very different and he was quick to address the matter and not duck the issue.

Bennett told VU in no uncertain terms that, while he did make some phone calls to his former girlfriend, he did not kick down her door -- "I'm willing to take a lie detector test on that," Bennett told VU.

Many scouts felt comfortable with Bennett's explanation of the incident at the Combine, which some people felt would allow him to drop as far as he did. The Vikings had no problems concerning the matter after having it explained -- Bennett received thousands of cards and letters of support from fans following the incident, which most believe was blown out of proportion.

Regardless of how the case ends up, Bennett said he will face the charges and get past them -- saying he's now focused on being the best NFL player he can be. One thing can be said for him, he didn't duck the issue and answered every question that was posed to him -- proving to us anyway that he's a man of his word.

WEDNESDAY NOTES
* Bennett's final pre-trial hearing is scheduled for May 16.
* The Vikings signed undrafted free agent offensive lineman Wes Hines Tuesday.
* In a follow-up to the story we reported yesterday, Randall Cunningham and the Ravens have agreed in principal to a contract but, because of current Ravens cap restrictions, the deal likely won't be finalized until after June 1, but both sides are saying behind the scenes that the Cunningham signing is a done deal.
* Viking Update has been experiencing problems with pages loading on the Rivals site. Although we aren't expecting the complete shutdown of Rivals until at least next week, if at all, we are building up our site here at www.VikingUpdate.com in the background. Only when the Rivals site is not functioning full-time will we make this fully functional. When the Rivals site is live, we will redirect you to that. When the Rivals site is down, we will take off the redirect. For now, all you need to know is that you can always find find us by entering www.vikingupdate.com in your URL address bar. Thank you very much for your patience.