The Bengals on Monday signed five players to the team's offseason roster. All five were on the Bengals practice squad as the 2010 season concluded. The five are:
» FB James Develin (Brown)
» T Andrew Gardner (Georgia Tech)
» S Cary Harris (Southern California)
» G Otis Hudson (Eastern Illinois)
» DE James Ruffin (Northern Iowa)
Harris will be classified as a second-year NFL player in 2011. The others signed Monday will be first-year players.
BENGALS HAVE FOURTH SELECTION IN 2011 DRAFT
The Bengals have been allotted the fourth selection in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft, scheduled for April 28-30.
Carolina (2-14 in 2010) has the first selection. The 2-3-4 spots are held by Denver, Buffalo and Cincinnati, which all finished 4-12. The Bengals are at No. 4 because their 2010 schedule was the strongest of the three teams, based on aggregate opponents' record. Cincinnati's 2010 foes played to an overall .582 winning percentage. Denver (.516) gets the No. 2 selection, and Buffalo (.578) gets the third.
If the Bengals keep the No. 4 spot, it will mark their earliest draft selection since 2003, when they took QB Carson Palmer with the No. 1 overall pick.
BENGALS 2011 OPPONENTS SET
The Bengals' list of opponents, home and away, has been set for 2011.
Game dates and tentative kickoff times will not be determined until the spring.
In interconference play in 2011, all AFC North teams are matched against the NFC West. The Bengals will have home games against Arizona and San Francisco, with the 49ers visiting Cincinnati for the first time since 2003.
Two of the games -- home against Buffalo and on the road at Denver -- were determined by the 2010 NFL standings. As fourth-place finishers in the AFC North, the Bengals are assigned to play the fourth-place teams from the AFC East and AFC West. The other 14 Cincinnati opponents were already known via the announced NFL schedule rotation that has been set through 2017.
