As has been reported in the past and we’ve gone over a few times, the cause of the rift between the Cincinnati Bengals and first-round pick Shemar Stewart is one of the team breaking contract precedent.
That’s something again in the national spotlight on Friday, with NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero breaking it down during an appearance on Rich Eisen’s podcast.
Like other reports, Pelissero confirmed that the Bengals are trying to reset how they do contracts when it comes to the voiding of guarantees.
More importantly, he, too, reports that this language is something that other teams already have in place in their contracts.
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In short, the Bengals want the language in place that voids guarantees, if necessary. Generally speaking, that could pertain to non-football injuries, off-field issues or similar, though the exact reporting hasn’t specified. It’s so rare to see happen that it doesn’t come up often.
Either way, even if a rookie like Stewart had his guarantees voided, it doesn’t remove pay and would, unless cut or traded, still have a chance to earn the then-non-guaranteed money.
As always, the Bengals are perfectly within their rights to want to re-do how they do aspects of contracts. Stewart and his reps are within their rights to take issue with being the first.
Whether the Bengals are smart to try this now with a project player while Trey Hendrickson has contract beef at the same area ahead of a key season is up for debate. And whether Stewart is smart to miss valuable development time and cause distractions when these clauses might’ve been in place had he been drafted to a different team is also up for debate.
Alas, the standoff continues.
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