Shemar Stewart's contract situation is a BAD look for the Bengals

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses why the Cincinnati Bengals are ACTUALLY the bad guys in the Shemar Stewart contract situtaiton.

Transcript

00:00A new report details why the Bengals first round pick has yet to sign his rookie contract and is

00:04yet to practice with the team and in this video I'll explain why it's the Bengals who are in the

00:08wrong here. Hi again Bengals fans, John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here. This week is a big

00:16week for the Bengals offseason as phase three of the offseason workout schedule begins this week

00:21with the start of organized team activities otherwise known as OTAs. It's the start of

00:26seven on seven, nine on nine, 11 on 11. Obviously there are no pads and contact within the trenches

00:31or anything like that but this is the first slight taste of actual football in the offseason for the

00:36Bengals and I would love for that to be where the main focus is but unfortunately there are still

00:41some dilemmas that the Bengals have to iron out with their team and right now I'm still stuck thinking

00:45about what's going on with Shamar Stewart. Now for a quick recap Shamar Stewart was the Bengals first

00:49round pick from the 2025 NFL draft from a month ago. He has drafted 17th overall and most of the players

00:55drafted around when he was drafted have already signed their rookie contracts. When you're looking

01:00at picks 10 through 19 only two players are unsigned at this moment and one of them is Stewart. The

01:05other one is Walter Nolan who was drafted one spot ahead of him at 16th overall by the Arizona Cardinals

01:10but Walter Nolan is practicing with the team Shamar Stewart is not. Now as more time has passed there

01:15have been more reports that have come out explaining why Stewart and the Bengals haven't reached an

01:18agreement yet. The latest report comes from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk who explains that there is

01:23language within Stewart's contract offer that would potentially put him at risk of losing guaranteed

01:28money in future years. For the sake of transparency Florio described it as a phrase that causes a

01:33default in the current year to trigger a default in all remaining years. The contracts that first round

01:37picks sign they are 100% guaranteed but there are ways in which those guarantees can be voided via

01:42suspensions and other things like that and that default which again could be triggered this year when

01:46he's just a rookie it could void all the future guarantees in his contract and that this particular

01:51phrase was not included in the contract that Amarius Mims the team's first round pick in last

01:55year's NFL draft it was not included in that contract nor the contracts that Jamar Chase and

02:00T Higgins signed back in March. Now it's clear to me even if we don't have all the details here is that

02:05Shamar Stewart is not in the wrong here he's not arguing about the total value of the deal that number

02:10essentially is locked in based off of where you're drafted but if and this is obviously a big if if the

02:16Bengals are trying to use Shamar Stewart's contract to establish a new precedent for how they handle

02:21all contracts I think Stewart has a good leg to stand on here. The war between guaranteed money and

02:26the Bengals has been ongoing for as long as I've been alive for as long as free agency has existed

02:32it's something the team has struggled with for a long time and as other teams continue to get smarter

02:36with how they handle the salary cap and how they handle their finances it's only going to make the

02:40Bengals look worse. But if this is truly the case if the Bengals are so worried about guaranteed money in

02:44the sense that they are trying to recuperate some of it in case something happens with Shamar Stewart

02:48specifically because they're trying to use him and his contract to establish the new precedent here

02:52if they're using him to do this new form of business I completely understand why Shamar Stewart is not

02:58practicing. What I don't understand is why are they doing this to him specifically like do they see him

03:02as someone that has no choice because he's a drafted player and his rights completely belong to them

03:07and if he doesn't play football for the Bengals then he doesn't play football for anyone? Are they

03:10potentially nervous because of the fact that they gave out so much guaranteed money to both Jamar

03:14Chase and Tee Higgins that they don't want other players to get that idea that that guaranteed money

03:17is coming to them as well? Obviously the guaranteed money is still the guaranteed money and it's going

03:21to be paid to Shamar Stewart if nothing happens but whatever this clause or this phrase may be

03:25it seems like a way for the Bengals to get some of that money back if something does happen and more

03:29importantly it can be triggered this year when he's just a rookie. I don't know why Shamar Stewart

03:33is potentially the guinea pig here and unfortunately we don't know the full story about what's happening

03:38here at all. What I do know is that the Bengals made a choice to draft Shamar Stewart with the 17th

03:43overall pick. They took some initial criticism because of his lack of college production. They

03:47took all the stories about drafting an edge defender when they still have Trey Hendrickson

03:51still technically on the team but he's looking for a new contract and all the storylines that came

03:55with that right. They stood on their decision to draft Shamar Stewart and now for whatever reason

03:59they won't give him a contract similar to the first round picks that came before him. So hopefully

04:03in the near future we either hear the full story from both sides of the equation here or this whole

04:08situation just gets resolved and Shamar Stewart signs. But if this is truly one of their efforts to make

04:12sure that guaranteed money that they give out to players is not truly guaranteed compared to where

04:16other teams do it it's just not the way to go about this. But then again that's just Bengals

04:21business in a nutshell.

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