Most teams act like they’re obsessed with winning. All teams are obsessed with making as much money as possible.
To their credit, the Bengals don’t pretend to be trying to count anything other than dollars. To their detriment, the obsession with profit can — and does — get in the way of performance.
"[I]f the most important thing is the financials and the second-most important thing is winning, then you don’t have a chance,” former Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer said of the team in 2019. “And it’s so important that ownership is willing to do what it takes to win.”
Last year, the Bengals allowed a contract dispute with receiver Ja’Marr Chase to impair his preparation for the regular season. He didn’t know whether he’d play in Week 1 against the Patriots until 90 minutes before kickoff. And the Bengals lost that day to a New England team that otherwise went 3-13.
This year, they’re at it again. After somehow managing to get Chase and receiver Tee Higgins to not drive the hardest bargains they could, the Bengals face a fight over dollars with pass rusher Trey Hendrickson. That one was predictable, and largely unavoidable.
The other one was neither. At a time when the Bengals needed to have first-round rookie edge rusher Shemar Stewart in the fold and ready to roll, the Bengals decided to tweak the default language in their standard rookie deal and draw a line in the sand over it. They’ve also refused (so far) to make any concessions elsewhere in the menu of negotiable terms in order to get Stewart to accept an esoteric adjustment to the boilerplate portion of their copy/paste contracts.
And so the notoriously slow-starting Bengals, who would have made the playoffs last year if they’d only managed to beat the Patriots, are once again stacking the deck against themselves. For what?
It’s not even about money, at least not directly. Like it was when former Bengals cornerback Jonathan Joseph explained players couldn’t take Gatorade home and had to share hotel rooms on road trips. Or when the team didn’t gather at a local hotel the night before home games, allowing players to stay out all night and show up for work hungover — or still drunk.
While there’s a financial component at play in the event that (1) Stewart is a bust, (2) the Bengals want to cut him but not pay him, and (3) Stewart commits a default that allows the guaranteed money to be voided, this seems as if this is less about pinching pennies and more about power.
Remember how this started. Stewart dared to refuse to participate in offseason practices without a signed contract. (At a time when most contracts are negotiated quickly after the draft, NO player should practice without a formal deal in place.) The Bengals presumably didn’t like that. So now they’re being stubborn about their desire to cram new (for the Bengals) contract language into Stewart’s deal, insisting on a unilateral change in procedure with no apparent willingness to offer a corresponding concession.
At this point, it’s not about winning games or making money. It’s about showing the players who’s boss. And it’s potentially impairing the team’s ability to be as ready as it can be when Week 1 rolls around in only 85 days.
But the front office doesn’t care about that. It cares about money. It cares about control. It cares about getting Stewart to cry uncle and accept new contract language with nothing in return for it.
Frankly, it’s amazing the Bengals are currently as good as they are. One of the biggest reasons for that is the presence of quarterback Joe Burrow.
And if they don’t truly change their ways, Burrow should eventually do the same thing Palmer did.
The clock is ticking more and more loudly for the Bengals and Hamilton County.
The Bengals have until June 30 to extend their current lease at Paycor Stadium. Absent an extension, the lease expires after the 2025 season.
Via Chris Wetterich of the Cincinnati Business Courier, the county has released its latest proposed lease terms, along with the most recent proposal from the Bengals.
Hamilton County has proposed a $210 million contribution from the Bengals toward an $830 million renovation of the venue. The county would pay $270 million and the state would contribute $350 million.
The team has proposed spending $200 million of its own money, but with $45 million of that coming from money spent “years ago” on renovations. The county and the state would spend at least $308 million each.
The county proposes extending the lease by 20 years. The team wants a five-year extension.
Even under the county’s proposal, the Bengals would pay only 25.3 percent of the total amount. At a time when teams are paying half (and more) for new or renovated venues, that seems like a good deal.
If the two sides can’t strike a deal by June 30, the countdown will start toward an expiration of the lease. Although Bengals executive Katie Blackburn has said "[w]e could, I guess, go wherever we wanted after this year,” it’s unclear where the Bengals would go.
The Bengals and defensive end Shemar Stewart have a contract dispute that traces to very specific contract language regarding the potential voiding of guarantees. The Bengals, put simply, want to make it clear that a default committed in any year of the contract wipes out all future guarantees.
At least one person within the organization has told an outsider that the Bengals believe the existing language does the trick. Which invites an obvious response: Drop the issue and use the language from the contract signed last year by tackle Amarius Mims, the 18th overall pick in the draft.
The Bengals nevertheless insist on changing the language in the contract offered to defensive end Shemar Stewart, the 17th overall pick in the 2025 draft. In other words, the Bengals have an established practice that they now want to change.
Here’s how that works, in this context. To get the change they want, the Bengals need to offer some other change. It could be, for example, a minor change to the signing bonus payout schedule. It could be anything. Make a change to another term, and get the change they want.
For now, the Bengals are opting for stubbornness. It has caused Stewart to miss all of the offseason program. If they can’t get this worked out before training camp, he’ll be missing some or all of that, too.
Through it all, he’ll be less ready for Week 1 than he could have been. And that’s on the Bengals, especially since their recent practice has been to allow contract squabbles to keep guys from being as ready as they can be for the games that count.
And, as they learned in 2024, losing one extra game that counts is the thing that can keep a team from making the playoffs.
This problem could be easily fixed. With the Bengals, however, it seems nothing is ever as easy as it could be.
Bengals center Ted Karras is rookie edge rusher Shemar Stewart’s teammate.
But Karras is also an NFLPA vice president, putting him in a unique position to give perspective on the contract dispute between the Bengals and their top 2025 draftee.
“It’s not the best-case scenario of how the spring could have gone for our first-round pick,” Karras said, via Paul Dehner Jr. of TheAthletic.com. “But there is [a] pretty serious business aspect to our profession. He has taken counsel from his camp.”
The Bengals, of course, also have a contract dispute going with edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, who did not attend mandatory minicamp this week.
“The main thing I want to say is I don’t think — to either of our defensive ends — there is any harboring of resentment in our locker room,” Karras said. “I really hope both camps can figure this out because we have a really good team. We’ve had a super-productive spring. You just don’t want this to carry over into summer.”
While quarterback Joe Burrow noted that the situation with Hendrickson is a distraction, Karras didn’t want to use that label for Stewart.
“I don’t think it’s been a distraction,” Karras said. “I think it has more been a distraction for the fans, mostly. I know Twitter is hot right now and Cincy Twitter doesn’t mess around ... I think how it has played out has been probably unfortunate for both sides.”
We’ll see if things change for the Bengals and either edge rusher as the calendar gets closer to the start of training camp.
Bengals first-round pick Shemar Stewart did not attend Thursday’s mandatory minicamp session as he and the team continue their standoff over a clause in the rookie’s contract.
Head coach Zac Taylor confirmed after the session that Stewart wasn’t there, saying the club is staying focused on the players who were. Taylor also noted that he and Stewart have had “good communication” and “positive conversations,” effectively saying that he wasn’t surprised by Stewart’s absence.
However, Taylor would not go as far as saying that he’s confident Stewart’s deal will be done by training camp.
“I’m not going to make any predictions,” Taylor said.
Stewart has not been on the field for the Bengals since he was drafted, saying he won’t practice until his contract is signed. But he has been in the building, learning the defense in the classroom.
“I think for all the rookies, you’d like them to be on the field,” Taylor said. “But certainly, there’s things that happen over the course of an NFL career and this is one of them right now. So, he’s been in the meetings, he’s been positive that way. He’s been a good learner. And we look forward to getting him back on the field quickly.”
The Stewart situation has undoubtedly become a distraction for Cincinnati, especially considering his comments from the locker room this week. Taylor again said that he and Stewart have had “good communication” when asked if the two had talked about how publicly critical Stewart was about the organization.
“I think there’s education that happens with all the rookies, that we do our best to educate them,” Taylor said. “No. 1, we want to protect our team in our locker room. And so, there’s some things — I understand when there’s frustration there. That’s how he chose to do it. That’s his prerogative. And we look forward to getting him back in the fold.”
If this contract dispute continues, Stewart does have some options, but not many. We’ll see if one of the two parties blinks before training camp begins in late July.
With a contract impasse over an esoteric clause regarding the potential voiding of the future years of his guaranteed four-year rookie deal, Bengals defensive end Shemar Stewart has left the team’s mandatory minicamp.
Because he’s not under contract, he had every right to leave if he wanted.
As we understand it, the move wasn’t a direct product of the lingering disagreement with the front office. Instead, he didn’t want to be a distraction for the players who are under contract and participating in the minicamp.
The issue comes down to that one term in the contract. The Bengals are trying to change their usual language regarding the voiding of guarantees to extend the consequences of a default in the current year to all future years. Stewart doesn’t believe he should have contract language any different than the player the Bengals took in the first round last year, tackle Amarius Mims — especially since Stewart was drafted higher in the round than Mims.
Both sides are being stubborn. For the Bengals, it’s a continuation of offseason and training-camp stubbornness that keeps their players from being as ready as they can be for the coming football season. It happened last year with receiver Ja’Marr Chase. It’s happening this year with Stewart and defensive end Trey Hendrickson.
Earlier today, we outlined Stewart’s options. He doesn’t have many, but he could sit out the entire year and re-enter the draft in 2026.
The Bengals and first-round defensive end Shemar Stewart remain at odds regarding his rookie contract. If the impasse over Cincinnati’s effort to change its standard language regarding the voiding of guarantees in future years lingers, Stewart has options.
Not many, but he has options.
Here’s what he can do, given the relevant terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
First, he can refuse to sign and demand a trade. The window for trading an unsigned draft pick expires 30 days before “the first game of the regular season.” This year, the regular season begins with the Eagles hosting the Cowboys on September 4. The window for trading Stewart closes on August 5. After that, Stewart can’t be traded by the Bengals at all in 2025 — whether he signs or doesn’t sign.
Second, Stewart can wait to sign until the Tuesday after Week 10 and still play in 2025. After that, he can’t play at all in 2025, “absent a showing to the Impartial Arbitrator of extreme Club or extreme personal hardship.” The CBA contains no definition or explanation of the term “extreme hardship.” Whatever it means, the arbitrator must make a decision within five days of the application, and the decision “shall be final and binding upon all parties.”
Third, he can refuse to sign at all until the 2026 draft begins. At that point, he’d re-enter the draft pool. During the 2026 draft, he could be drafted by any team except the Bengals.
Fourth — and this is something that we contemplated during the 2025 draft both as to quarterback Shedeur Sanders and quarterback Quinn Ewers — Stewart could try to return to college for the upcoming season. Even though it would require an actual or threatened legal battle against the NCAA, the rule that prevents a player who has been drafted but who hasn’t signed an NFL contract from returning to college football could be susceptible to an attack under the antitrust laws.
Somewhat surprisingly, the CBA contemplates the possibility that a drafted player will instead go back to college. Here’s the language, from Article 6, Section 6: “If any college football player who becomes eligible for the Draft prior to exhausting his college football eligibility through participation is drafted by an NFL Club, and returns to college, the drafting Club’s exclusive right to negotiate and sign a Player Contract with such player shall continue through the date of the Draft that follows the last season in which the player was eligible to participate in college football, and thereafter the player shall be treated and the Club shall have such exclusive rights as if he were drafted in such Draft by such Club (or assignee Club).”
In English, this means that, if Stewart returns to college football in 2025, he’d be treated as a draft pick of the Bengals in 2026. Which means that he wouldn’t be permitted to re-enter the draft next year.
Fifth, he could refuse to sign with the Bengals and play in another pro football league, like the CFL or the UFL. The CBA addresses that possibility, too. If Stewart plays in another professional league in the 12 months after being drafted, the Bengals would hold his rights for three years after the 2025 draft. After that, the Bengals would have a right of first refusal as to any contract Stewart would sign with another NFL team.
One last point. Any player that wants to avoid the draft entirely would have to sit out up to two years. If he re-enters the draft and is picked again, he could refuse to sign a contract and become an undrafted free agent after the next draft.
For Stewart, it’s not about bypassing the draft entirely. It’s about getting the Bengals to relent on their desire to suddenly change their void language for future guarantees. If they refuse, and if he won’t blink by the Tuesday after Week 10, he’ll re-enter the draft in 2026.
Unless he plays in the CFL or the UFL, which would tie him to the Bengals through 2028.
To summarize, Stewart can be traded until August 5. He can refuse to sign with the Bengals until the Tuesday after Week 10 and still play in 2025. Or he can sit out all of 2025 (and not return to college or play in another pro league) and re-enter the draft in 2026 for selection by any team but the Bengals.
For most other teams, it’s highly unlikely that any of those extreme scenarios would occur. For the Bengals, who have a history of arguably ill-advised stubbornness, it’s important to keep these potential outcomes on the radar screen.
Free agent linebacker Germaine Pratt is signing a one-year deal with the Raiders, according to multiple reports. Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports the deal is worth $4.25 million with $500,000 available in playtime incentives.
Pratt was scheduled to make $5.2 million in base salary in the last year of his contract with the Bengals. Cincinnati released him earlier this week, saving $5.85 million against the cap.
Pratt, 29, requested a trade from Cincinnati in February following the firing of defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo. He now joins a Raiders linebacker corps that includes Devin White and Elandon Roberts.
Pratt started all 17 games last season and totaled a career-high 143 tackles to go along with two interceptions, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.
The Bengals made Pratt a third-round pick in 2019, and he registered 616 tackles, seven interceptions, 23 passes defensed, seven forced fumbles and 3.5 sacks in his time in Cincinnati.
The Bengals dealt with two contract stalemates last offseason as wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins spent time away from the team while trying for new deals that they finally got this offseason, but settling those issues didn’t solve all of the team’s issues on the contract front.
Edge rusher Trey Hendrickson has also been in the market for a new deal for a while and he did not report to the team’s mandatory minicamp on Tuesday as part of his push for a pact. Quarterback Joe Burrow said that one distraction is better than two and that “we’re all supporting Trey” while acknowledging that there’s still a chance the end result will be Hendrickson moving on to another team.
“It’s not one that I think would make us a better team, so we’ll see what end up happening,” Burrow said, via Pat Brennan of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I wish I had an answer for you but we’ll see.”
There’s been no sign that Hendrickson and the Bengals are close to an agreement on a new contract and Hendrickson’s last public comments on where things stand contained a great deal of frustration with how the team has handled its business, so the answer that Burrow and others are looking for may still be a long time coming.
Bengals first-round draft pick Shemar Stewart says he will not practice until he signs his rookie contract and that the only way he’ll sign is if the Bengals change their stance about inserting a contract clause that he views as unfair to him.
“In my case, I’m 100 percent right, so it should be a no-brainer,” Stewart told reporters today in the Bengals’ locker room.
The Bengals are insisting on a contract clause saying a default by Stewart in any year of the contract would void of all his remaining guarantees. The Bengals have never insisted upon such language before; with their previous contracts, they have only made a void wipe out the guarantees for the year in which the default occurred.
“I can’t say what I really want to say, but it’s their contract. They can do what they want with it,” Stewart said.
Stewart says he wants to practice “very bad” but will not practice until he signs his contract.
“It’s very important. You have to get your body prepared to play football,” Stewart said. “I thought I’d be on a field by now. That’s what I want.”
Stewart said he’ll do everything he can to prepare, but he won’t practice and risk an injury while the Bengals are refusing to meet his contractual demands.
“I still go to meetings, I still study my playbook,” Stewart said. “I’m always ready to go. I’ve been staying ready to go. It’s my job, I’ve got to be ready to go.”
But Stewart won’t be ready to go until the Bengals change their stance.
