Why Bengals Fans Love the New CBA

Of everyone who benefited from the NFL ending its 130-day lockout and agreeing to a new CBA, perhaps the biggest winners are the Cincinnati Bengals fans. For too long Mike Brown has done his best to stay under the salary cap and pocket as much money as possible, but no more. Now teams are required to spend close to the salary cap limit, which means Brown now has to spend more money on bringing in good players and thus make the Bengals more competitive.

Another nice feature in the new CBA is the new rookie wage scale. Rookie contacts are much smaller than previous years. The Bengals 2011 1 st round pick,AJ Green, the 4th overall pick, has a 4-yr deal worth $19.7M, which is fully guaranteed. Last yr, the 4th overall pick Trent Williams received $36.8M guaranteed. Clearly the Bengals won out there, as they've drafted in the top 10 in 8 of the last 13 years. Now maybe they can spend less money on unproven rookies and more on proven veterans.

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The new CBA also features more slotted salaries, meaning it will already be known what the total salary will be for a player almost as soon as he's drafted based on where he's drafted. This is key because in the past, rookies would hold out in hopes of getting more money than their draft position was worth. That won't happen now, and the Bengals have been the poster child of rookie holdouts. Here's just the past decade of draft picks and holdouts they've faced:

2010 Jermaine Gresham drafted 21st Held out 5 days.

2009 Andre Smith drafted 6th Held out 30 days.

2008 Keith Rivers drafted 9th Held out 10 days.

2007 Leon Hall drafted 18th Missed a practice on the first day of Training Camp. 1 year remaining on current contract.

2006 Johnathan Joseph drafted 24th Signed first day of camp. No longer with team.

2005 David Pollack drafted 17th Held out 19 days. No longer with team.

2004 Chris Perry drafted 26th Held out 11 days No longer with team.

2003 Carson Palmer drafted 1st Signed two days before the NFL Draft. No longer with team.

2002 Levi Jones drafted 10th Signed first day of camp No longer with team.

2001 Justin Smith drafted 4th Signed one day before first regular season game. No longer with team.

To sum it up, not only have the Bengals spent a large amount of money on high draft picks, they haven't panned out and crippled the franchise. Only 4 players drafted in the 1st round during the 2000's is still on the Bengals roster. Oh, did we mentioned AJ green signed his deal Thursday, 3 days before his first NFL practice? Your welcome Mike Brown. I'm starting to think when the players were negotiating a new CBA, they had teams like the Bengals in mind when thinking of problems that needed to be fixed. Now Mike Brown is essentially forced to be competitive when it comes to spending money. And when you stink and have a high draft pick, you'll still have plenty of money to spend on proven players. Rejoice Bengals fans!

By Jason Marcum
ProFootball-fans.com Cincinnati Bengals Correspondent