Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Why are the Bengals so DRAMATIC?! | Shemar Stewart's contract dispute details emerge

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Cincinnati Bengals might be the most dramatic team in the NFL. Samar Stewart, the latest example. Let's get into it. You are Locked-on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Locked-on Cincinnati Bengals drama. Locked-on Bengals podcast. We're part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.

Starting point is 00:00:35 team every day trying to keep up with all of the contract disputes that are playing out in the media here for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2025 off season. I'm Jake Liskow, he's James Rapin. We've been locked on Bengals on this podcast since 2016 covering your Cincinnati Bengals every day. Now on YouTube and everywhere you get your podcast. So you can hit that subscribe button wherever you're watching or listening and you won't miss an episode of Lockdown Bengals. That'll make you an every day or shout out to all of you who are already everydayers and all of you to make Lockdown Bengals, your first listen. Excellent listening habits for all of you in that boat.

Starting point is 00:01:11 James, today we dive back into the drama around Shamar Stewart. We're going to take a moment after that because we've been talking about so much drama with this team and his contract negotiations this off season, last off season. Joe Burroughs' contract extension went down to the wire and talk a little bit about why are they like this? It's a frustrating question. people that have been following the team for a long time, obviously not new for you,

Starting point is 00:01:38 but if you're a little bit newer to being a Bengals fan, we'll try to get into a little bit of their history around contract negotiations. Finally, we're going to finish up with the topic around the schedule, as Mike North talked with Jeff Hobson over at bengals.com and express some regret, which we'll talk about whether or not we buy. But first, Samar Stewart has, through his agent or his agent, I should say, has through PFT, pro football talk, expressed specifically now the point of contention as Stuart remains off the field and his

Starting point is 00:02:09 rookie contract remains unsigned. Yeah, it's, uh, here we go. It's just more drama. You're right. And I think there are both sides to this, two sides to it at least. Maybe you want to go three sides. Regardless, we'll try to get to every single side here. But I'll read a little bit of what PFT, Mike Florio wrote. The Bengals and Stewart are haggling over language regarding the potential avoiding of his future guarantees per source with knowledge of the situation the bengals went to include a phrase that causes a default in the current year to trigger a default in all remaining years the problem is that the contract signed by last year's first round pick amarius mims does not include the language that the bengals are now attempting to insert into stewart's deal mims obviously

Starting point is 00:02:52 was the 18th pick stewart 17th pick this year the key phrase were told also doesn't appear in contract signed earlier this year by jemar chase and t higgins and there we go. Something that you've mentioned on the pod, Jake, is that this is one of the possibilities. And what's interesting about it, and Florio added this, is some teams have done this,

Starting point is 00:03:18 but there's more upfront money to it. And that the rookies that have agreed to it have gotten the upfront money that they were desiring to do that. And it's a give and take. And I do think that that's an interesting point but really regardless, I keep coming back to it. Like now we know the why.

Starting point is 00:03:37 We have a good idea about the why it's not signed. But it's May 25th, and not every rookie is going to be signed by May 25th. But when it's keeping him off the field, that's when it hurts. And it hurts Shamar and it hurts the Bengals and it hurts everyone involved. And it's why, by the way, this is a topic. This isn't really a topic for us if he's practicing because it's May 25th. And he doesn't need to be signed. He does not have to sign his rookie deal.

Starting point is 00:04:02 but since he's not practicing, whether that's on Shamar, Shamar's camp, or the Bengals or everybody involved, that's the issue. That's why it's a topic. That's why we look and we're a month removed now from the draft and we're like,

Starting point is 00:04:14 man, that guy was a really raw prospect. Like a lot of evaluators felt that way about him. He needs reps. He's not getting any reps, which means he's not getting better, which means how much are they going to be able to bank on him right away?

Starting point is 00:04:26 And it's all part of it. And it's why this is such a huge discussion and huge topic. Yeah, It's not unusual at all for a first round pick to be unsigned on May 25th as we're recording this podcast. Maybe May 26th as you're listening to this podcast. Maybe he's signed by the time you're listening to this podcast. That would be great. Just take one piece of drama off our plates.

Starting point is 00:04:45 Let us talk about something besides contract drama for a week on lockdown Bengals. Maybe we'll be able to talk about just Bengals football topics. And we do have plans to do that. But then these contract-related stories and complaints, keep coming out and we have to we have to address them over and over but like I said not unusual for a first round pick not to be signed right now marius wins wasn't signed until what july late july last year like July 22nd like right before camp yeah so that's fine but amarius was practicing the whole time it wasn't a i'm not going to practice because i don't have a contract

Starting point is 00:05:24 and because initially and maybe it still is an issue the the injury waiver protections weren't sufficient for shamar stewart's camp to feel comfortable putting them on the field. And now there's this issue over these new contract or sorry, guarantee voiding language topics that the Bengals, maybe you're trying to establish precedent for all their rookies. Maybe this is just something they've changed this year, which, okay, the Bengals were allowed to try to do that, but if it's a point of contention, then eventually it will be resolved, and it will be resolved. But again, the reason it's an issue is because Shamar isn't on the field. This maybe happened with

Starting point is 00:06:07 Amari's Sims last year. Maybe they tried to do the same thing with Amari's Smiths last year. And it didn't play out in the media. And that's why it took until July. And finally in July, they're like, okay, fine, we'll take it out. And then nobody knew about it. We were none the wiser because it didn't play out through pro football talk. And it didn't play out on the Lockdown Bengals podcast. And it didn't play out with Amari's missing practices. But again, because Jamar isn't on the field, we have to talk about this and we have to talk about how annoying it is, that it's another contract that feels like it's harder than it has to be. We have more details than we have in the past. These things playing out

Starting point is 00:06:41 through the media, Trey Hendrickson as well, Jamar Chase last year, having more information makes it more annoying because you get a look at how the sausage just made, right? And it's not pretty. And this is another instance of that with the Bengals in the last couple of years, where it's really not pretty. And we have to sit here and endure it until they get them on the field. They get the contract on and they do what they need to do to move past us. I think a lot of our listeners and viewers probably frustrated one way or another about the situation, about it in general.

Starting point is 00:07:13 And it might not even just be frustration with the Bengals. Maybe you're frustrated with Jamar. Fine. I can't imagine anyone's more frustrated than Zach Taylor. Because like, if they get off to a slow starter, the defense isn't playing at a high level. And that's a big part of it. And they need more pass rush. Well, the two guys that you're really banking on to help that, one guy is in limbo and

Starting point is 00:07:39 Trey Hendrickson. And then the other guy in Chamar Stewart, you took with the 17th pick, hoping that he would help there. And hoping that he would be disruptive and make an impact right away. And that doesn't mean he won't. Of course, still time, still early. I think there are a lot of people that would look at this and say it's still may. I'm not worried about it. And I do get that.

Starting point is 00:07:57 Like there were holdouts well into training camp for years and years and years. Akely Smith showed up to Georgetown with a boombox weeks into camp. And yeah, Andre Smith, that video has gone viral from Hard Knocks in 2009. Like I get it. I understand the that side of it. But in this day and age with the rookie wage scale, you've already signed rookies to contracts that clearly didn't have this in. it, Amarius didn't have it in it, either find a way to get him on the field with the contract and getting it done.

Starting point is 00:08:35 And by the way, this goes to Shamar's people too. You should want your client on the field right now so he can make an impact and make a run a defensive rookie of the year. That should be his focus, would be my focus. And so both sides should want to get this done so number 97 can be on the field and learn from his teammates and be ready to go and hit the ground running when training camp starts, It's not playing catch up. And that would be my fear at this point.

Starting point is 00:09:00 It seems like such a small thing to resolve. And I guess it's not. If it was that easy, they would have resolved it. But it's not like we've talked about this many times. The money is set. The money that Samar Stewart is going to make on this contract is set. They're talking about language. You're not talking about money.

Starting point is 00:09:17 That makes it all the more frustrating. We've seen the dig in over guarantees in the past. We've seen them digging over money in the past. We've seen that lead to things getting strung out in the past. and now we have a language issue that's leading to their first round pick who needs reps not being on the field. And it's just frustrating all the way around. And I'm going to keep saying pulling teeth until it's not pulling teeth. That's what Drew and Contracts is with this team.

Starting point is 00:09:43 Why are they like that? How far back does the history go? Let's talk about that a little bit and give a little bit of characterization to how the Bengals approach these negotiations. why it's so frustrating and why these complaints have been ongoing for so long, we'll do that coming up next. Ever check your bank account and wonder, where did all my money go? Between dining out, online shopping and entertainment, it's easy to lose track, especially when you're looking to pay that 17th overall pick.

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Starting point is 00:10:52 That's MonarchMoney.com, code locked on NFL for half off your first year. James, the Bengals have a history. history. People that have been following the scene for a long time probably expected all of this negotiation stuff. They're not surprised by it at the very least. If they didn't expect it, they're not surprised by it. I mean, there's the old Carson Palmer example. Carson Palmer retired instead of playing for the team after they didn't trade him and he made his trade request. But in recent history, for people that say they started following the Bengals during the

Starting point is 00:11:30 Super Bowl run, the AFC championship run, Joe Burrow joining the team, a lot of new fans in the last few years, right? This has been visible even in the Joe Burrow era as well. And there are many examples. Yeah. It's been sprinkled throughout the Joe Burrow era, I think, especially in recent years. You've noticed it. And it's like it's Jesse Bates.

Starting point is 00:11:56 The Jesse Bates one is the one that's going to come up a lot. I think T. Higgins was close to being in that realm, and it didn't happen. But there are times when really throughout the Bengals history where it's like, oh, well, they should pay this guy and then they don't. And sometimes they get it right. We obviously remember a lot of the times they got it wrong. DJ Reader certainly hurt them last year. They shouldn't have paid Sheldon Rankins.

Starting point is 00:12:23 They shouldn't have, especially the same money that they could have given the DJ Reader. should have just kept DJ Reader. Both had injury histories. Rankin's a huge mistake. Like a lot, like awful decision. So there are plenty of those. But the most recent one to me that really impacted the team

Starting point is 00:12:44 was last year with Jamar. Jamar is like you knew you were paying him. The world knew. It doesn't matter what happens. You have to pay Jamar Chase. Joe and Jamar, like you have to. It's just inevitable.

Starting point is 00:13:00 And so to have that negotiation go into basically, not just game week, but into like that Friday and Saturday of things and have Jamar question whether or not he's going to play that first game, it's such a distraction. And that's the element of it that like with Trey or Shamar, like you definitely don't want it to get to that point with tray right and and then the the the rookie stuff is different but just you don't want something that's inevitable signing shamar steward to impact his rookie year jamar signing an extension was always going to happen in cincinnati always there were never going to trade him that was never a thing and so for that to bleed into last year and then he may have to

Starting point is 00:13:47 play out that year without a deal well it just hurt the team early in the season and ultimately they they may say hey we we got a motivated jimmar and it worked out and yeah, it probably cost you the Kansas City game, right? And might have cost you that New England game. And so that's where it's tough, I would say, and in the most noteworthy recent element here, at least that I can think of contract-wise. Yeah, I think T. Higgins does fit into the conversation

Starting point is 00:14:15 where that was not going to happen until suddenly it was going to happen. But this all fits into the same things that we've talked about. So every dayers have heard us talk about this before. But the trends for why this happens for the Bengals, there's a few reasons, I think. One, they're notoriously stubborn about their valuations of players, the monetary value that they assigned to a contract in their heads. They pick a number. And unless they have to, because they're out leverage, and I think of Jamar Chase and T. Higgins on this and probably Joe Burrow a little bit as well. Not that they were ever not going to pay Joe,

Starting point is 00:14:55 but that went longer than it needed to as well into the very end of the off season right before that first game. They wait until they have to do things. And I think these things go hand in hand, right? They're stubborn about these valuations and they don't do anything unless they have to do the thing. And there are examples of this with external free agents as well, where or like when they've had two of their own guys,

Starting point is 00:15:25 Michael Johnson and Carlos Dunlap back in the day, they offered both guys essentially the same deal, said, ah, one of you will take it. And then one of them did. Warren, Sam.

Starting point is 00:15:35 Goes way back to 20. Yeah. Bengals should have gotten Warren Sapp. People that just started following a team, that was a thing that was going to happen in 2003, 2004. And they kind of left him at the altar there, basically.

Starting point is 00:15:49 So he went elsewhere. So they stick to these numbers that they come up with. And instead of negotiating, this happened with DJ Reeder, I think, last year too. Like they negotiated a little bit, but it wasn't meaningful. It wasn't moving enough off of their number of years, guaranteed money, money, overall money. They don't really care about the bad press they get. They don't care that Trey Hendrickson is going out there talking to you guys on the sideline right after practice or writer's practice is ending for 20 minutes. It might annoy them a little bit, but it doesn't impact them.

Starting point is 00:16:21 not really. They've never cared and goes through all of their public negotiations in the past. If anything, it makes them be more stubborn. And it makes them dig in their heels more, maybe drags things out even more. And I'm not faulting Trey for doing what he did. He has every right to do that. It's just the Bengals don't react to that. And I don't think very many teams in the NFL really do.

Starting point is 00:16:45 A lot of teams in the NFL would prevent it from getting to that point. They would be more proactive in getting these guys paid. And that's the other problem. We talked about this a bunch. The Bengals have been right quite often in letting guys play out their deals and letting them go elsewhere. They've also been wrong in recent years with a few examples and in waiting to pay guys. And this leads to you paying more for Jamar Chase, more for T. Higgins. And people call that counterfactual history with T. Higgins saying that, oh, well, he wasn't worth anything back then.

Starting point is 00:17:18 and if there were reasons not to extend it back then, and I don't really see it that way, they always could have extended T. Higgins for much, much cheaper than $30 million per year if they had been proactive. And maybe there's then a contract dispute to follow us, right? And he wants more money. He wants to raise, and the Stray Hendrickson situation plays out with T. Higgins, who knows? But by waiting and by being stubborn about their valuations

Starting point is 00:17:42 and by generally playing hardball whenever they can, even over things as simple as contract language now, we see these things take longer than they need to and be a little bit more painful than they need to. And when they play out publicly, we see how the sausage is made, which I referred to previously, it looks really bad from the outside. You're making me hungry with all these sausage references. By the way, Warren Sapp, it was 2004. I thought it was. So it was after Marvin got the town, 2003, they go 8 and 8.

Starting point is 00:18:11 They make a run at Warren Sapp. And he ended up in Oakland at the time with the Raiders. but by the way, the Bengals ended up with Sam Adams. So there you go. Sam Adams. He was big. Didn't make much of an impact, but he was big. Yes, look, it does always feel like there's something.

Starting point is 00:18:32 It always feels like it's something. It just does. It's why going into the draft, we're like, man, they have so many holes. Why is it always like take that extra step? And it's the same thing in negotiations. With a lot of these guys. The franchise, the most important person in the building, and Joe Burrow didn't get his deal until the Thursday before the regular season started.

Starting point is 00:18:56 Come on. You tell me, Joe wanted that? You tell me, Joe wanted that the Dragon to Game Week? Like, that's insane. That's insane. That's Gotham not paying Batman until right before he faces the joke. Like, you know? Like with that one, they probably were pretty much agreed earlier in the week.

Starting point is 00:19:13 But, like, just get the name on the dotted liner. earlier in the week then or weeks before like why are we dragging this out i don't want my star player signing a contract and jumping on a flight to go get hit by miles garrett yeah like like you know it's going to be a tough game he needs to be down into that and not having a moment it joe would say oh it doesn't affect me or whatever like that's the point is is there's a pattern and it's always something and it doesn't even mean that the bengals are always wrong by the way but when you have the pattern then everyone looks at the history. And that's it.

Starting point is 00:19:50 But by the way, I don't necessarily think that Warren sat, like they got it wrong with Warren Sapp and they missed out on, I'm not saying that, but there's just the history of that. And it's always harder than it needs to be. And sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not. I think that's what they would say. And I get that. But sometimes it's just simple.

Starting point is 00:20:10 And you should just get it done. Some of these are really obvious. And those are the ones that are the most, annoying out of all of them because every NFL team gets a right and wrong sometimes like you said and the Bengals are right sometimes but these patterns

Starting point is 00:20:25 over history are certainly frustrating. Also frustrating, three straight Thursday nights in Baltimore. Let's talk about what Mike North had to say when he talked with Jeff Hobson a little bit about the schedule coming up next. Since we're talking about Jeff Hobson,

Starting point is 00:20:45 I just want to pull up, just shout out the Jeff. I pulled up a Bengals Warren Sat move on from each other article from bengles.com. This is what we're talking about here. My man has been at it. And that includes with Mike North on Sunday. And this was interesting stuff. Obviously, we've talked a lot about the Baltimore Ravens and having to go there playing Baltimore. Third straight Thursday night.

Starting point is 00:21:11 Joe Burrow mentioned it, all of those things. But when someone like Mike North is, asked about the Bengals. It's going to be probably the first thing that has mentioned throughout. And it sounds like Jake, he has a little bit of regret might be the wrong word, but in a perfect world, I think he wishes that game was in Cincinnati. At least that's what he told Jeff Hobson. Yeah, here's what he wrote, Jeff Hobson.

Starting point is 00:21:37 If North could have one game back to reschedule, he would wait the magic wand over that third straight short week Thursday night game in Baltimore on November 27th. He gets it. He knows the fans in the team. team aren't happy, just like they're living in Los Angeles because the Rams always seem to travel to San Francisco to play their division rivals in a primetime game. In our most recent episode, by the way, we looked at the history and there are other teams that have had to go play on short weeks. And it was actually San Francisco going to Seattle was one of the examples we found.

Starting point is 00:22:08 But I did find it interesting. Wave a Magic Wand. I mean, you literally have a Magic Wand. You just have to have just like the extra attention to detail when you're making the schedule. So I don't know how much Mike North is losing sleep over this. He seems to be generally pretty happy with the amount of national attention that he has created for the Cincinnati Bengals this year. He referred to the number of premium time slots, including primetime and the late afternoon window games, because those are generally national broadcast, even if you're not. if they're not stand-alone broadcasts. But the interesting thing then is when you start to include those late window games,

Starting point is 00:22:54 most of those are on the road too. It's two to one, two road, one home. So when you throw those into the balance, you got three prime time road, two late-window road, you got a total of five premium time slot road games. You have a total of two home premium time slot games, which is the Thursday night game against Pittsburgh. And they have one late window game at home against Detroit and week five. 425.

Starting point is 00:23:20 Yeah. Yeah. It's. And the other thing that's wild, at least to, and you, you witnessed this in 2021, Thursday night, Jacksonville, but strike out game recently, what, two years ago now. Like, Bengals prime time is awesome. Like the DeMar Hamlin game before, obviously that happened. And obviously he's doing great and all that. But like, the stadium, the atmosphere was election.

Starting point is 00:23:47 electric. Like Paycor crushes it at night. Like Paycor at night's a lot of fun. And the bangers have done a great job atmosphere wise of getting it to that point during the Joe Burrow era. You want to talk about something they've completely nailed. It's that. Can you give them a few more opportunities? By the way, me selfishly, I think one o'clock games are the best. I feel like you probably feel that way too. It's great. Primetime games aren't, we don't love those because we're up really, really late, especially in my case. I don't leave the stadium until late, but they absolutely deserve

Starting point is 00:24:18 more primetime games here in Cincinnati because they've crushed it. And it seems like in the Joe Borough era, they've kept the same number, you know, one to two home primetime games per year, and usually one. And now they're going on

Starting point is 00:24:36 the road and having to play all these teams primetime-wise, and that's it. And it's like, all right, well, I get it. You got to play more in prime time because you have the star power, Cincinnati should be able to see their stars under the lights a bit more too because they have some of the biggest stars in the league.

Starting point is 00:24:52 I think, yeah, I think the most disappointing thing about it, like you said, is how well Paycourt does with this. The strike stadium stuff is awesome. The fans do a great job with that. The team does a great job with that. The theme nights and whiteouts. I mean, the stripes, I think personally, I'm partial to the stripes,

Starting point is 00:25:07 but like Paycourt does a great job. And the fans do a great job with that stuff. And it's really not from a practical perspective. Like it's not the biggest deal. From a football perspective, there's maybe like a half point, maybe a quarter point that you get from prime time at home in most cases. Because the whole short week, AFC North road game thing, which has been dreadful for the road team. It's a lot of that as a Bengals being like 0 and 6, I think. Like there's, they're what, like three and 13 in road primetime games in the AFC North.

Starting point is 00:25:48 And the Bengals are maybe 0 and 6, 0 and 7 in those games. So the Bengals are on the one hand overrepresented because the Ravens have played one road division game in prime time in the last five years or whatever it is. I have a tweet on it. It's been retweeted recently enough. You can go find it. But while that disparity isn't okay from a practical perspective, like not the biggest deal. The team still have an equal opportunity to win the games. where it matters is mostly it's just for the fans it's for the you know the players having an

Starting point is 00:26:17 opportunity to do it at home is for the opportunity for the city to put on a show it's more of an event for the city so it's Cincinnati that's being deprived as fans that are being deprived which is really annoying and and I think fans are rightfully upset about those things and Cincinnati just has to go overcome it and like Mike North said go ruin Baltimore's Thanksgiving yeah yeah Well, of course. And I said this on a recent show. Like now's the time to make your your comments publicly if you're Joe Burrow. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:50 And when it's game time, when it's in season, you just embrace the challenge. And you know he will. And it'll be fun. Playing on Thanksgiving is going to be awesome. Like I think he's going to love it. Now traveling to Baltimore again, all right. We'll get some crab cakes, enjoy them. And then go put on a show.

Starting point is 00:27:09 And he's played really well. Baltimore. That's the other thing. He has played really well in Baltimore. They've either had a lead late or been right there when he left the game or had a, I mean, he gave them a lead in, in 2022. And then the Raven scored at the end to win the game. He left the game with a lead in 2023. Last year, we saw what happened. I mean, they should have, they go for two. They could easily tied it, go for too late. So they've been awesome games, but it does feel like Cincinnati should get another primetime game or two.

Starting point is 00:27:46 Like I do feel for fans there. And I feel for the Bengals because they've put a lot of resources into making that an elite atmosphere. And so to do that and to like what you've done and then to only, and Thursday night against the Steelers is going to be awesome. I'm not saying, no, it's not. But it would be nice to have one or two more. I'd say that.

Starting point is 00:28:06 I look forward to the day that happens. I mean, the schedule makers, I think, have some get right to do. They have some makeup calls to make. Yeah, Mike basically said that they're not going to go to Baltimore for a fourth straight year on Thursday night. I mean, he basically said that can't happen. There's enough of an outcry and Joe Burrough talking. Maybe there's enough attention on it here to tilt the pendulum back to a majority home. But next year, they have a heavy road schedule.

Starting point is 00:28:35 They probably have an international game. that might be a home international game in a year where they're only going to have seven home game next year. No, eight home games, nine away games next year. Because this year is a heavier home game year. So we'll see how it works out next year. But let's wrap up there, James. We've talked drama, drama, drama.

Starting point is 00:28:58 So much drama. Where's the football talk? Well, hopefully we'll have a chance to get back to that a little bit this week because we dive back into the Bengals roster, get into some off-season prognostication over how the team's roster has shaped up, where it's better, where it's worse, where they can improve,

Starting point is 00:29:16 even the stars, how the stars can get better. That's part of the conversation as well. We'll see how many of those topics we're allowed to get to this week, depending on what kind of drama emerges on Locked-on Bengals. Until then, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Ho-Day and have a good.

Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Why are the Bengals so DRAMATIC?! | Shemar Stewart's contract dispute details emerge

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