The Bengals select Shemar Stewart with the 17th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft!

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses the Cincinnati Bengals selection of Texas A&M pass rusher Shemar Stewart with the 17th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft!

Transcript

00:00The Bengals selected one of the most explosive players in the entire NFL draft,

00:04but there's also a lot of risk attached to him. So in this video,

00:06I'll explain where the pressure now resides in Cincinnati.

00:12Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here,

00:16and Shamar Stewart is the newest Cincinnati Bengal. Throughout this process, I have been

00:20weary of the Bengals taking Stewart. I always thought that it was a definite possibility

00:24with him being 21 years old, a five-star recruit from a big-time program. He matches

00:29the pedigree and the profile of each of the last now four first-round picks that Cincinnati has made

00:36going all the way back to Dax Hill in 2022. They say the draft is an exact science,

00:40but you can pretty easily predict who the Bengals are going to pick once they're on the clock looking

00:44at their options. And as soon as Walter Nolan went off the board to the Arizona Cardinals,

00:47a pick before the Bengals picked, Walter Nolan being the guy that we predicted would be the pick

00:51a month ago, it was going to be Stewart no matter what, unless they traded down. And just from that

00:55perspective, I am kind of glad that they didn't have to pick between Nolan and Stewart because I

01:00really don't know where they would have gone. Once Nolan went off the board, though, Stewart

01:03became the obvious pick for them in their eyes. We knew this pick had a really good chance of being

01:07a pass rusher, someone that could give them a lot of explosive juice up front. And the one thing

01:11we know for a fact about Shamar Stewart is that he is explosive. You don't run a 40-yard dash under

01:15four or six seconds and jump nearly 11 feet in the broad jump without having a lot of power in your

01:20lower half. And that is the upside with Shamar Stewart. He is huge, and he is fast, and he

01:25explodes off the ball. And that is a combination for someone who can be very dangerous in the NFL.

01:29But my word, man, this is a gigantic bet on not only Al Golden, but his entire staff on the

01:34defensive side of the ball. Because not only is Stewart extremely young, he is not even remotely

01:38close to being finished as a football player. For all of the speed, explosion, and power that is

01:43clearly evident in his game, and I'm sure while the Bengals on film, there is a lot of work to be done

01:48with his hands, with his football awareness, stringing together pass rushing moves. There

01:52is so much work that he needs to do in order to be usable on Sundays. And for a team that needs

01:57pass rushing help right now, I do question how impactful Shamar Stewart is going to be as a

02:02rookie in 2025. And the questions do not stop there. Stewart is yet another defensive lineman the

02:07Bengals have drafted with a premium pick that had a lot of production questions that make you wonder

02:11how high is this ceiling actually in the NFL? Because believe it or not, the very best pass rushers in

02:16the NFL, they all produced a lot more than Shamar Stewart did in college. And I don't mean to be

02:20a box score scout here, but that's just the truth. And those outliers, they do exist. Daniil Hunter,

02:25Jason Pierre, Paul immediately come to mind as athletic freaks who didn't really do that much in

02:29college, who entered the NFL at a young age, and then when their careers progressed, they got really

02:33useful. And that is a path forward for Stewart, but the Bengals specifically have not been able to

02:38find the key to unlock these kinds of pass rushers. And it just makes you ask the question,

02:42why is this time going to be any different? Because four and a half sacks and 11 tackles for loss

02:46and three years of playing time at a major program, it does raise a lot of flags. And it's not just

02:50because of the scheme that he was in or the fact that he was double teamed a lot. He himself left

02:53a lot of production on the field. And if he didn't, he probably would have been drafted a little bit

02:56earlier than when he was. So Stewart is going to have to be this outlier if he's going to be anything

03:00more than just a decent player in a rotation for the Bengals. And if that's who he is, that's fine.

03:04You know, that's a role that you can have for several years and last in the NFL. But for the Bengals to

03:08look back on this pick and say this was a resounding success, Shamar Stewart is going to have to be an

03:13exception to the rule. And that means that there's going to be a lot of pressure on Al Golden and his

03:16defensive staff to get that to happen. But I want to hear what you guys think. Is Shamar Stewart worth

03:20the risk with the 17th overall pick? And how do you think the rest of the draft is going to go for

03:24the Bengals? Let me know in the comments below.

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