Should Cincinnati Bengals rookie Shemar Stewart return to Texas A&M | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC
something that Shamar Stewart may do. He’s the last unsigned first round pick. Every other unsigned player is the 30 guys as of right now in round two who are caught up in the whole second round guarantee thing. Shamar Stewart, we know the history. The Bengals are insisting on a change to the language that is relevant to when guarantees will void or more specifically the impact of a default. The current language, if you have a default, it voids your guarantees for this year. They want Stuart to sign a contract that says if you default, it voids all your future guarantees. It is a change in procedure for the Bengals. They want to impose more ownorous terms on Steuart. And they haven’t offered a corresponding concession. Their attitude is just sign it. What’s your deal? Just sign it and go play football. Why are you giving us a hard time about this? Just sign the damn thing. That’s basically their attitude. So, what could he do? What are his options? We laid them out back in June, and the CBA has contemplated anything and everything that an unsigned, disgruntled draft pick could do. Now, the cleanest and easiest thing, but the thing that also results in no income for the player, at least no direct football income, sit out the whole year and reenter the draft. If you do that, sit out the whole year, don’t play football anywhere, reenter the draft next year, you get reddrafted, any team but the Bengals could draft Shamar Stewart. That’s straight from the CBA. Another option, and this one isn’t realistic because there’s no other pro league out there that would pay good money to the player, but if he would go play in a pro league, that that’s covered as well where the Bengals would still hold his rights and he if and when he would come back to the NFL, he would still be contractual property of the Cincinnati Bengals. the one that’s relevant here if he goes back to college whether it’s Texas A&M or elsewhere and that’s come to the forefront because there was a report that and we’ve confirmed that Stuart is back at Texas A&M working out he’s not working out with the team but he’s back there working out if he would play college football this year now they’d have to get the NCAA to abandon ship on another rule that may very well be the latest antitrust violation the idea that a player who has never signed a pro contract waves forever his remaining college eligibility. That may be the same kind of antitrust violation that all the other ones are. One letter from Jeffrey Kesler may send them hiding under the nearest bed. It’s getting late. Like the time to do this would have been a month ago, but they could still try. And if that would happen, if he would play college football this year, number one, he gets paid. And there’s probably a number at which he would do it. I don’t know what the number would be, but at a certain point, the number is enough to get you to defer the start of your pro career by a year because you delay everything when you do that. Your signing bonus, your pay, your eligibility for a second contract, your eligibility for a fifth year option, eligibility for free agency, that all gets delayed by a year. So, whatever I’m getting this year needs to be enough to get me to willingly bump my career back a year. So, that’s part of it. But how it would work is the Bengals would still hold his rights as the 17th pick in the draft. He would go back next year to the Bengals and they try to work something out, but he would have made in the interim whatever money he makes at Texas A&M or elsewhere in 2025. It is an option. It’s not a great one, but it’s an option and it entails more financial return for Jamar Stewart than not playing at all. And the other benefit here, now I don’t know that this would work on the Bengals. It may work on another team, but the Bengals is the Bengals to paraphrase Juju Miss Schustster, at least when it comes to cheapness and stubbornness. But for most teams, if Shamar Stewart would create a plausible impression that he’s going back to school, that might be enough to get the team to say, “Okay, let’s work out this stupid nuanced contractual term that is keeping us from getting a deal done. But the reality is most teams wouldn’t be in this spot anyway. To get to the point where you predict what a rational non-disfunctional team would do from this point forward, you presume that the rational non-disfunctional team would allow itself to be in this stupid predicament where they have a guy that they need in the fold. They need to have him ready to go. They can’t afford to be 0 and1, 0 and2, 0 and three. Let’s have our best players out there and available. They wouldn’t be in this spot. But all other things equal, most teams would would, you know, if you catch wind. Oh, Shamor’s thinking about going back to Texas&M. Wait, I heard that boosters got 15 million or whatever. Whatever. I’m just throwing a number out there, but whatever. Gets back to the Bengals. I’m like, we got to work this damn thing out. Like most teams would be like, we got to work this out. Bengals may just say, fine, we’ll keep his money for a year. Fine. He can come next year. Fine. We don’t care. We don’t care. We’re not bowing. We’re not caving. This isn’t about money. This is about power. So much of the monetary fights in the NFL aren’t necessarily about the dollars and cents. It’s about making sure the players know their place. Don’t get that twisted. It’s about power. We’re in charge. You’re not. You just work here and you’re temporary. And at some point you’re getting pulled out of the machine and replaced with someone else. But we will endure for decades if not centuries. That’s the attitude. So they don’t want to give up any power to the players. That may be at the core of this. But it’s stupid. It’s just stupid. At some point some point you got to put winning above all of that crap. And that’s what Carson Palmer said. If you put making money above winning, you’ve lost. And that’s what the Bengals did. And that’s why he decided after the 2010 season, get me the f out of here. Hi, it’s Mike Florio. Thanks for watching PFT on YouTube. Hit subscribe for the latest news and analysis from Pro Football
Mike Florio weighs Shemar Stewart’s options for playing football with the Bengals or returning to college football this season, as he remains the only unsigned first-round pick from the 2025 NFL Draft. #ProFootballTalk #NFL #NBCSports #Bengals
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Should Cincinnati Bengals rookie Shemar Stewart return to Texas A&M | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC
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15 comments
This dude is taking a big chance man fr he could get hurt or even have a bad year but hope it works out for him good luck man
I really do hate companies/employers that play these games with contracts. It's a L for everyone involved.
Im not sure what to think. Ive known girls that lied about this tyoe of thing . What tyoe of evidence is there that he violated her? And if he did what she said, then why spend the night with him again ? Are we sure this isnt some type of jealousy thing ?
All the fans see is a bunch of privileged jocks whining 😂
Bengals won’t budge
Don't really care either way tbh, but next time, dont draft a potential problem player
Maybe Texas Tech wants him???
Why am I reminded of Jerry Jones when the talk is about money over winning?
The stipulation he is so against is basically; be a man, don't be fu$k up, and don't embarrass yourself or the organization. Pretty simple terms to agree on for an adult. It says a lot about his character that he doesn't want to sign it
No. He should fire his agent and sign his contract. He’ll be a 6-7th round draftee if he reenters the draft. Keep spouting all this stuff Mikey and you’re going to cost this kid 10s of millions.
Sweet kitchen!
He can’t! At least if his goal is to not be a bengal he can’t.
Look at the bright side. He goes back to Tech, collects NIL, and escape the Bungles and their inept front office.
Why are you so focused on back to college. It's smarter for him to sit and re enter the draft
He aint going back to texas tech. Lawyers of nfl are top notch. 0% chance that happens. Re entering the draft next year is possible but what team would want him