By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Bengals are going to make it costly for another team to lure away Rudi Johnson.

Johnson, a tailback and restricted free agent, was tendered Monday at the highest one-year offer, $1.824 million.

The team also tendered one-year offers to six other restricted free agents and terminated the contract of defensive tackle Oliver Gibson.

A restricted free agent is a player with three accrued seasons and an expired contract. If Johnson does not sign with the Bengals before midnight tonight, he can go on the restricted market through April 16.

If a restricted free agent accepts an offer sheet from a new team, his original club has the right to match the offer and retain him. If the original team declines to match the offer sheet, it can receive draft picks as compensation.

By extending the highest tender to Johnson, the Bengals would receive first- and third-round picks if they were to refuse to match an offer Johnson might sign.

"They've demonstrated in the tender and in negotiations that they think highly of Rudi," Peter Schaffer, Johnson's agent, said. "Rudi loves the Bengals, loves playing for Marvin Lewis, loves the Brown family and loves the fans. Rudi wants to be a Bengal for life.

"All that being said, Rudi also is comfortable playing at the tender this year and going on the unrestricted market. If they do not make us a proposal we're comfortable with, we're going to play it out."

The Bengals extended $628,000 tenders to six other restricted free agents. The Bengals would receive a draft pick in the round the player was drafted if they were to decline to match another team's offer sheet. The six are kicker Shayne Graham, safety Kevin Kaesviharn, guard Victor Leyva (fifth-round pick), wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh (seventh round), linebacker Riall Johnson (sixth round) and tight end Tony Stewart (fifth round). Graham and Kaesviharn entered the NFL as undrafted free agents, so the Bengals would receive no compensation.

The Bengals also tendered cornerback Reggie Myles, an exclusive rights third-year player. Myles, who led special teams with 21 tackles, can sign only with the Bengals.

Gibson, who will turn 31 on March 15, played in all 16 games as a backup and had 29 tackles and a half-sack. The Bengals will save an estimated $1.27 million against the salary cap by releasing Gibson.

The salary cap is the maximum amount each club may spend on player salaries in one year. The cap for the coming year - beginning Wednesday - is 64.75 percent of league-wide gross revenue, divided by 32 teams. The amount per team is $80.582 million. Gibson's release puts the Bengals an estimated $11.2 million under the cap.

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E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com

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