The Bengals are No.1 in the NFL in something, after all. They have the most money to spend on player contracts for 2001, according to Enquirer research.

        Based on this year's NFL salary cap of $62.2 million a team, the Bengals will have more than $16 million avail able to spend for 2001, according to NFL and media sources. That would be the biggest cap “cushion” in the NFL, according to people with access to each team's payroll figures.

        “I don't know that that's true, I really don't,” Bengals president Mike Brown said, when told of the potential cap dollars. “It's unclear how much cap room we're going to have.”

        It may be no coincidence the Bengals (2-10) are joined by two other bad teams, Atlanta (3-10) and San Diego (1-11), as Nos.1, 2 and 3 in cap room. The Bengals have $16.3 million available for 2001, followed by Atlanta's $12.3 million and San Diego's $10.3 million.

        Figures are based on players already under contract for 2001. In the Bengals' case, that does not include free agent halfback Corey Dillon, who will command a huge contract.

        The NFL Players Association has each team's numbers but will not discuss

        them publicly. Agents and all 31 NFL teams also have access to the figures but will not discuss them on the record.

        The Enquirer gathered its information from several independent NFL sources, all with access to payroll numbers.

        The Bengals' cap cushion continues a decade-long trend of frugality. Records obtained by The Enquirer show the Bengals had the second-lowest average payroll in the league during the 1990s.

        The Bengals have a 54-118 record since 1990, the worst record in the NFL in that time.

        Also, since the NFL implemented a salary cap in 1994, the Bengals have spent the second-lowest amount on players. The Bengals have averaged $45.25 million a year on payroll since '94.

        “Teams in the NFL today all spend comparable money on players,” Brown said. “It isn't like the times before free agency, when San Francisco was out ahead of everybody. What they did then was get any player that became a free agent.”

        Today, Brown acknowledged, it comes down to the college draft and then the signing of veteran free agents.

        The Bengals' recent drafts have been spotty at best. And blue-chip free agents won't come to Cincinnati because of the team's losing tradition. Of the 29 unrestricted free agents the Ben gals have signed since 1993, only cornerback Ashley Ambrose (1996) made the Pro Bowl.

        Peter King, the lead football reporter for CNN/Sports Illustrated, said the Bengals need to bring in the long-discussed “football guy” to run the show.

        “It amazes me that a man as intelligent as Mike Brown won't change the structure at the top, and there's nothing they can do until that changes,” King said. “A lot of times, the Bengals can't get the top-tier free agent, but they still wind up spending their cap money on guys who aren't worth the money.

        “They spend their money on all the Eric Bieniemys rather than the one Corey Dillon.”

        King's tell-tale story is of Ryan McNeil, a cornerback who, while with Cleveland in 1999, had a no-trade clause put into his contract.

        “The only team he didn't want to be traded to was the Bengals,” King said. “I mean, does Ryan McNeil know Mike Brown? Probably not, but he knows enough about the Bengals.”

        If Brown has heard that kind of story once, he has heard it a zillion times. He also said the Bengals have no plans to change how they do business, and the salary cap is actually in their favor. Theoretically.

        “In today's NFL,” Brown said, “with the cap, I think we're all so close that it scarcely matters. We spend comparable to what others spend.”

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