The Bengals signed rookie kicker Travis Dorsch to a three-year contract Wednesday, but the day was largely one of frustration for team executives.

        Dorsch will report today with other Bengals players to training camp at Georgetown College, but the team's top two draft choices — left tackle Levi Jones and safety Lamont Thompson — are likely to be holdouts. The other four draft picks are signed.

        Negotiations with the two unsigned players, especially Thompson, made little progress Wednesday.

        Dorsch is believed to have received a signing bonus of roughly $300,000, comparable to other signed rookies drafted early in the fourth round.

        Dorsch, from Purdue, holds Big Ten career records with 355 points and 68 field goals. Drafted unusually high for a kicker, Dorsch is expected to beat out incumbent kicker Neil Rackers in training camp.

        “It's an important thing for him,” said Duke Tobin, the Bengals' director of player personnel, who negotiated the contract with Steve Dorsch, the kicker's father and agent.

        As for Jones, neither Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn nor agent Kenneth Zuckerman returned repeated phone messages Wednesday. If he does not sign in time to report today, Jones would become the seventh of the past eight Bengals first-round draft picks to miss at least one day of camp.

Wyche coaching, teaching at high school Bengals sign Dorsch, but holdouts loom Bengals may be out of Adams derby 23 football deaths in 2001 NFL Notebook: Steelers' Smith gets $25 M deal

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