Bengals seem fed up with Shemar Stewart negotiation: Predicting when drama might end with first-rounder

CINCINNATI — The first round of the 2025 NFL Draft took place 88 days ago, and somehow, in that time, the Cincinnati Bengals have failed to work out a deal with their top pick, Shemar Stewart. 

The pass-rusher from Texas A&M is the only remaining first-rounder who is still unsigned and if Monday was any indication, the drama might not be ending any time soon between Stewart and the Bengals. 

The team held its local media day Monday, which is annually held on the eve of training camp. It’s mostly notable because it’s the one session per year where owner Mike Brown meets with the media. You don’t really know where you stand with a team until you hear from the owner, and as of Monday, Stewart now knows where he stands and it’s not in a good place. 

Why Bengals likely won’t be budging

With rookie contracts now slotted, both sides know that Stewart will be signing a four-year, $18,969,276 deal once it gets done, so this isn’t about money. It’s all about the language in the contract, and Brown sounded slightly irritated that Stewart’s camp won’t agree to what the Bengals are offering. 

“It’s a negotiation that has reached a level of — I can only think of a word that I shouldn’t use — but it’s silliness,” Brown told a horde of media, including CBS Sports. 

The two sides are haggling over contract language that involves the voiding of future guarantees. If Stewart were to get suspended or arrested during the four-year deal, the Bengals could void the guarantees. As Brown said, he doesn’t want to be paying a player who’s in jail.”

“His agent wants it to be so that if he acted in a terrible fashion — this is all hypothetical — something that rises to the level of going to prison, that we would be on the line for the guarantees for the future years that haven’t been paid,” Brown said. “And our position is no, if that happens, we’re not going to be. We’re not going to be paying someone who’s sitting in jail. That’s not what we’re going to do.”

Stewart doesn’t want that void language in his contract. He wants to make sure his fully guaranteed money stays guaranteed, even if he has a legal slip-up off the field. 

Agent’s Take: Breaking down exactly why Bengals’ Shemar Stewart remains only unsigned 2025 first-round pick

Joel Corry

Bengals are trying to copy the rest of the NFL

On the surface, the Bengals’ stance makes sense, but it’s all about precedent. The Bengals haven’t asked their last three first-round picks to put the language in their deal, so Stewart doesn’t understand why he has to be the guinea pig. 

The Bengals’ argument is that almost every NFL team has this language in their rookie deals, so Cincinnati’s front office is trying to “evolve” to join the rest of the league, according to director of player personnel Duke Tobin, who has been with the organization since 1999. 

“It really doesn’t make any sense to say that Cincinnati doesn’t get to evolve their contracts, yet the rest of the league gets to evolve their contracts,” Tobin said. “I don’t buy into that philosophy at all. Contracts evolve. I’ve been in it for 30 years and they’ve evolved every year for 30 years. They’ve evolved in good ways for players: Signing bonuses go up, that’s an evolution. Guarantees get extended further down the draft, that’s an evolution. You can’t just say you want the positive evolutions, yet the teams can’t evolve their language to be clearer on the meaning that is actually agreed to, which is why other teams have done it.”

Stewart has been adamant since minicamp that his stance is the correct one. 

“I’m 100 percent right,” Stewart said in June.”I’m not asking for nothing you all have never done before, but in you all case, you all just want to win an argument instead of winning more games.”

The Bengals are trying to set a precedent that they can use in all future rookie deals. Second-round pick Demetrius Knight Jr. signed his rookie contract Saturday and signed a deal that had the language the Bengals wanted. Stewart is now the last one standing. 

Prediction on when this ends

The Bengals had their rookies report to training camp on Saturday, but Stewart wasn’t there. Although he didn’t report, his absence won’t become a huge issue until he starts missing practices. The Bengals first training camp practice will he held on Wednesday, so the two sides have roughly 48 hours to get something figured out. 

Based on the acrimony on both sides, it seems like a long shot that Stewart will get a deal done by then. Both Brown and Tobin seemed exasperated by the situation, and Brown made it clear the Bengals aren’t going to budge. That makes it feel like a deal is only going to happen if Stewart’s side is willing to blink in this multimillion dollar game of chicken.  

Tobin took a subtle shot at Stewart’s agent, Zac Hiller, which probably isn’t going to help negotiations. Tobin said Stewart isn’t getting great advice. 

“I’m not going to blame Shemar, he’s listening to the advice he’s paying for,” Tobin said. “I don’t understand or believe or agree with the advice, but I’m not the one paying for it. If I thought we were treating him unfairly as it relates to all the other draft picks in this year’s draft, then maybe it would be a different story, but it’s not.”

Slotted contracts have existed for rookies since the 2011 CBA was implemented and since then, the longest holdout ever has been 31 days, which happened in 2016 between Joey Bosa and the Chargers. This might not last that long, but if Stewart doesn’t cave, this feels like a situation that could drag out until mid-August. 

Prediction: Stewart’s holdout drags out beyond the Bengals’ first preseason game on Aug. 7.