Bengals first-round defensive end Shemar Stewart continues to refuse to participate in the offseason program until he signs his rookie contract. It’s a stance that pushes back against the widespread fan and media assumption that new players will submit to the way things are done.
Earlier this week, for example, Ben Baby of ESPN.com characterized the situation as a “hold-in.”
It’s definitely not. Stewart isn’t under contract. He can’t “hold-in” is he’s not an employee.
He’s no more employed by the Bengals than anyone reading this. (With the exception of, you know, any actual Bengals employees who happen to be reading this.)
As we’ve said before, the position is simple — if you want me to act like an employee, make me an employee.
That leads to the overriding question: What’s the hold up regarding the supposed (but not actual) hold-in? As we understand it, the impasse arises from one remaining issue.
The Bengals and Stewart are haggling over language regarding the potential voiding of his future guarantees.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Bengals want to include a phrase that causes a default in the current year to trigger a default in all remaining years. The problem is that the contract signed by last year’s first-round pick, tackle Amarius Mims, does not not include the language that the Bengals are now attempting to insert into Stewart’s deal. And Mims was taken one spot lower in 2024 (No. 18) than Stewart was picked in 2025 (No. 17).
The key phrase, we’re told, also doesn’t appear in contracts signed earlier this year by receiver Ja’Marr Chase and receiver Tee Higgins.
So, basically, the Bengals hope to pivot from their existing contractual language regarding the voiding of guarantees to new language, with Stewart’s contract being the first one to get it. One one hand, the Bengals should be able to change their policies and procedures. Every business at some point does. On the other hand, in an industry where the contracts for the key employees develop a clear pattern and practice, it’s not typical to make a sudden shift to a new way of doing things.
It would be easy for the Bengals to justify the change by saying, “Well, other teams use contracts that apply a default in one year to all remaining years.” However, other teams pay out more of the signing bonus up front, too.
The point is that the Bengals have an established way of doing things, when it comes to the language of their contracts. They’re looking to make a change as to Stewart, and Stewart is taking a stand on principle. (The principle also becomes highly practical if/when Stewart were to commit a default.)
So before anyone wags a finger at Stewart for not submitting to the way things are done, let’s remember that the core of the current squabble flows from a sudden attempt by the Bengals to change the way contracts have been written.
With Stewart refusing to practice, the Bengals are losing out on the ability to get Stewart as ready as he can be for the start of the 2025 season. Which comes only a year after their failure to re-sign Chase resulted in Chase not being as ready as he could have been for the start of the 2024 season.
Which may have contributed to a Week 1 loss to a New England team that otherwise went 3-13. Which arguably creates a dotted line to January, when a Bengals good enough to get to the Super Bowl missed the playoffs by one game.
