{"id":37661,"date":"2025-05-09T23:58:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T23:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/37661\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T23:58:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T23:58:21","slug":"cincinnati-bengals-shemar-stewart-sits-out-rookie-minicamp-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/37661\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Bengals&#8217; Shemar Stewart Sits Out Rookie Minicamp. Here&#8217;s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/151601483.jpg\" alt=\"Shemar Stewart\" title=\"Shemar Stewart\"\/>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/topic\/cincinnati-bengals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> and offseason contract drama continue to go hand in hand. Each year brings a new set of players caught in limbo, and while stars like Joe Burrow, Ja&#8217;Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins have finally secured long-term deals, defensive end Trey Hendrickson remains in negotiations. Now, he&#8217;s being joined by a pair of newly drafted rookies.First-round pick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/topic\/shemar-stewart\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shemar Stewart<\/a> and second-rounder Demetrius Knight Jr. were both present but inactive at Friday\u2019s (May 09) rookie minicamp, watching from the sidelines due to unresolved contract details. Head coach Zac Taylor cited &#8220;contract stuff&#8221; as the reason for their limited participation. They remain the only two members of the Bengals\u2019 2025 draft class yet to sign their rookie deals.<\/p>\n<p>Stewart, selected 17th overall and expected to make an immediate impact on the defensive line, addressed the situation after practice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just decided not to sign those papers,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cI hate being on the sideline looking at everybody else do work.\u201d He added that he hopes to have the issue resolved before Monday (May 12).<\/p>\n<p>While rookie contract holdouts have become less common due to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/topic\/national-football-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Football League<\/a>&#8216;s (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/topic\/nfl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NFL<\/a>) slotted salary system, minor disputes still occasionally arise. As a first-rounder, Stewart is slated to receive a four-year deal with a team option for a fifth year, but minor details such as signing bonus schedules or guarantee structures\u2014can sometimes cause brief delays.Get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/latest-news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Latest News<\/a> Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/world\/us\/us-buzz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US Buzz<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/world\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World<\/a> and around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Bengals and offseason contract drama continue to go hand in hand. Each year brings a new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,2296,7,122,6,1496,7718,7717,12536],"class_list":{"0":"post-37661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-bengals","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnatibengals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-national-football-league","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-shemar-stewart","16":"tag-us-buzz-news-times-now","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-us-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114480592081195851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}