Reggie Kelly will stay with Bengals for three more years

Tight end Reggie Kelly said a late-afternoon phone call from quarterback Carson Palmer convinced him to take less money to stay with the Bengals.

Kelly said he would be staying in Cincinnati for three more years and that he left "a lot of money on the table" in Atlanta, Arizona and Oakland to remain a Bengal.

"That will be seven years with my hall-of-fame quarterback," Kelly told The Enquirer this evening.

Kelly and Palmer's locker-room cubicles are side by side. Palmer has called Kelly the best teammate he has ever had in football. Less than an hour after the Bengals lost in overtime to the Steelers on Dec. 31 to end the season, Palmer lobbied in his post-game news conference for the team to re-sign Kelly and third-down back Kenny Watson. Watson signed a three-year deal Friday night to return to the Bengals. They are the team's only two free-agent signings since free agency started Friday.

"To be honest, the deciding factor was our quarterback," Kelly said. "He gave me a call and told me how much he wanted me to come back."

Asked what Palmer told him, Kelly said, "He explained how important I was to his offense. He told me I was a large ingredient to our success. He said he wanted me back for football but also for leadership. (Palmer) is a great quarterback and a great teammate and he has a future as a lawyer."

Agent Jimmy Sexton told a Bengals employee that the deal is worth a total of $9 million. The salary information was posted tonight on the team-owned and controlled Web site.