Update: Shemar Stewart reached an agreement with the Bengals on his four-year, $18M contract on Friday, July 25. The last unsigned first-round pick reportedly accepted the conduct detrimental language in the contract in exchange for an improved signing bonus payout schedule.
The Cincinnati Bengals aren’t new to contract disputes. Still, the fracas surrounding rookie Shemar Stewart’s contract covers new ground.
Usually, first-round contracts are straightforward, with terms outlined in the collective bargaining agreement. This standoff is over specific “conduct detrimental” language in Stewart’s four-year deal that would allow the team to void future guarantees owed to him for off-field transgressions.
Stewart, a former standout edge rusher at Texas A&M and the No. 17 pick in this year’s NFL Draft, is the league’s lone unsigned first-round selection.
The Bengals have said they are doing what other teams have done by strengthening their conduct-related language in contracts. The Bengals already had a clause referencing voidability, according to Yahoo Sports, but recently beefed it up by adding “at any time” to the clause. Stewart’s camp wants his $18 million, fully guaranteed deal to resemble the first-round contracts of other Bengals in the past, which didn’t have that stipulation.
“If we get a player that gets involved in something like that, or does something that is just unacceptable, then guess what? I don’t want to pay him,” Bengals owner Mike Brown told reporters on Monday.
Cincinnati has a spotty track record with first-round draft picks, including notorious whiffs on Akili Smith (1999) and John Ross (2017). As a result, its proposed clause for Stewart has prompted some skepticism from local media covering the team. The Cincinnati Enquirer, for example, published an opinion column this week arguing the Bengals are merely looking for a potential escape from Stewart if he doesn’t pan out on the field. Instead of dumping his contract if he underperforms, the Bengals can be off the hook from paying him if he is arrested or does anything else the team deems detrimental, the latter category being somewhat open for interpretation.
The dispute involving Stewart—who does not have publicly known legal issues—is notably happening in the wake of the NFLPA’s collusion scandal over guaranteed money.
“For Bengals, it’s not about Stewart,” former Green Bay Packers vice president Andrew Brandt said on X. “It’s about imposing their will on a rookie contract to procure guarantee void language that they don’t currently have. Once they get it in Stewart’s contract, and they probably will, they will use that precedent to get it in every contract.”
Stewart has been away from the team since minicamp in June due to his dissatisfaction with the current language. Brown said the team remains in discussions about getting the deal finalized, adding that there is “really no reason why it shouldn’t be.”
“From our vantage point, it’s a form of foolishness,” Brown said. “It just ought to get done.”
Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin didn’t blame Stewart. Instead, Tobin targeted the advice he thinks Stewart is getting from his camp. Stewart’s agent Zac Hiller fired back by saying that Tobin isn’t even involved in the negotiations.
“It seems to be above his pay grade,” he told Pro Football Talk.
Stewart has been training at Texas A&M facilities during the contract standoff and continued to be away from the team as training camp got underway.
This is unfolding as the Bengals also deal with a dispute with four-time Pro Bowl defensive end Trey Hendrickson, who isn’t reporting to camp either as he seeks a new deal with guarantees beyond the first year. In April, Hendrickson questioned the professionalism of the front office after executive Katie Blackburn made public comments about his status before the draft.
Quarterback Joe Burrow, all set with a long-term contract, called the all-around acrimony between players and the team “obviously disappointing.
“You’d like to have all your guys out there Day 1 to try to build that cohesion that I was talking about earlier, but that’s not how it usually works out,” Burrow told reporters on Wednesday.
The Bengals also entered last year’s training camp with contract standoffs. Those involved star wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, who sought long-term deals. The team now has the highest-paid receiver tandem after both signed record-setting contracts in March. Chase’s four-year deal, which is worth $161 million, made him the highest paid non-quarterback in league history at the time.
Now, Cincinnati is navigating another contract dispute with Stewart and Hendrickson. It hopes to sign both soon and get the defensive reinforcement it will need as it looks to get back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2022.
“You know, it’s a business,” Burrow said on Wednesday. “And that is how it’s gone.”
