I am quite surprised at the amount of attention that a contract dispute between the Bengals and their first round pick, Shemar Stewart, has received over the last few weeks. While most unsigned rookies will agree to participate in offseason activities occasionally there are players who do not do so and Stewart has been advised not to participate due to a disagreement about the contract language that the Bengals have presented to his agent. With camp a few months away it really is unimportant but it’s the Bengals and a slow news time so I guess it has drawn attention.
Holdouts were very common in the old CBA as salaries were not standardized and rookie contracts were typically the most complex ones in the NFL. Even in the new CBA there have been occasional issues over things like offset language, payment dates, roster bonuses, etc…These sometimes drag into training camp which is far more important than the June minicamps teams have. Joey Bosa missed pretty much all of training camp his rookie year. Roquan Smith missed some time with the Bears as a rookie. Zach Wilson and Trey Lance, both top picks at QB, didn’t report on time due to issues with their contracts. At the end of the day all wound up under contract.
More often than not all of the haggling is nothing more than the equivalent of two people arguing over something very minor and refusing to back down simply because nobody wants to be the first to blink and admit they are blowing things out of proportion. While there are occasionally some concerns that maybe have merit 99% of the time the arguments are about scenarios that have virtually no chance of happening. But there is posturing by both sides while everyone cools off before a deal is finally made.
If this was a situation where the Bengals were offering less money than expected (the CBA does allow that) I could see the fighting, but the reports are that the Bengals are looking to insert new language related to voiding guarantees in a contract. Teams do this all of the time. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I would not be stunned if the gist of this is that the Bengals front office has had to put more effort into studying guarantee language around the NFL due to recently giving out guarantees to non draft picks and found more things they liked and would like to insert that. Is either side likely going to be harmed by the change? Probably not, but really who wants to admit that.
Stewart doesn’t have any leverage to not sign with the Bengals. The CBA makes it very difficult to avoid a team that drafts you. Sure you can sit a season but that just delays the time until you can get paid as a rookie and get the clock started on free agency. Trading is very difficult. My interpretation of the CBA is that to be traded he would need to sign first with the Bengals with the Bengals likely absorbing some salary in that scenario. The only other way would be if he was traded for another unsigned player from the 1st round and there are almost none of those. One of those players would likely be giving up some money in the process too.
At the same time the Bengals don’t really have much leverage either. What purpose is there for them to not have a rookie participating and get a ton of negative publicity? Despite the Bengals recent extensions of their star receivers they do still have a bad reputation around the league as being “cheap” and difficult to deal with. Why delay someone from getting reps due to some scenario that has such a tiny chance of occurring?
At the end of the day both sides will finally come to their senses and some common ground will be reached and he will be in a Bengals uniform some time during camp. I am sure we will get some articles praising both sides for figuring it out and all will be good because that is what always seems to happen and this seems no different than any of those other times.