The story of the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2025 offseason can be defined by the various contract disputes that had fans holding their breath and decision-makers uneasy.
First, it was receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, key cogs of the Bengals’ offensive machine who couldn’t find reasonable extensions. Ultimately, both were paid months after the possibilities arose, costing Cincinnati crucial cap space and creating unnecessary frustration.
That annoyance has since found itself on the other side of the ball, where edge rusher Trey Hendrickson is yet to receive the extension his performance deserves. His eventual co-star and potential replacement, first-round edge rusher Shemar Stewart, is also unhappy with his contract.
He has since “held in,” participating in everything except practice. One report from Mike Florio revealed the key detail behind the Bengals’ rookie contract dispute.
“Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Bengals want to include a phrase that causes a default in the current year to trigger a default in all remaining years,” Florio wrote. “The problem is that the contract signed by last year’s first-round pick, tackle Amarius Mims, does not include the language that the Bengals are now attempting to insert into Stewart’s deal. And Mims was taken one spot lower in 2024 (No. 18) than Stewart was picked in 2025 (No. 17).
“The key phrase, we’re told, also doesn’t appear in contracts signed earlier this year by receiver Ja’Marr Chase and receiver Tee Higgins.”
It isn’t immediately clear why Cincinnati has been so reluctant to cede this clause to someone it was willing to invest a first-round pick into. Stewart didn’t have public off-field issues hurting his draft stock, either.
Simply put, the Bengals haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt. This looks from afar like an organization searching for a way to potentially save some money in the event that things go wrong with Sanders, and creating an unnecessary mess in the meantime.
Cincinnati wins in the eye of the public when its rookie seems to be acting out of self-interest. But this isn’t a rookie biting off more than it can chew. Stewart is asking for the same respect his predecessors got, and the same deal that his fellow first-rounders around the league are signing.
It’s much more worthwhile to ask why the Bengals are routinely making headlines for contract malpractice, and whether it is worth it to institute unnecessary hurdles in the middle of a Super Bowl window.