Bengals knock out inevitably important offseason moves right before rookie minicamp

Fairchild, Carter, Rivers, and Brooks were the Bengals' third, fourth, fifth, and sixth picks, respectively in April's draft.

This leaves just defensive end Shemar Stewart and linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. as the lone draft picks unsigned. Stewart was the team's first-round pick and Knight was selected in the second round.

Signed or unsigned, all six draft picks are set to participate in Cincinnati's rookie minicamp Friday. It will be the first time rookies will practice with the team in an official capacity. The Bengals' rookie minicamp is also the only one in the NFL this year that will last just one day.

Rookie contracts are not too complicated to negotiate. The 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement created the rookie wage scale, which sets rookie salaries in place for both the team and agent to agree upon. Aspects such as guaranteed amounts can be negotiated for first- and second-round picks, but financials for later picks are pretty much set in stone.

This means we'll pretty much never see a holdout for a player drafted outside the first two rounds, and even those instances are rare nowadays.

Rookies signing their deals in a timely manner are inevitable happenings in today's NFL, but it still needs to happen. The Bengals managed to take care of 66% of their rookie class before they even got on the field for the first time.

Following minicamp, Cincinnati's rookies will begin practicing with the rest of the team in the coming OTA sessions later this month.