In the end, it was the Cincinnati Bengals who blinked first. After spending weeks and weeks taking a hard line with 2025 first-round pick Shemar Stewart, Cincy finally gave in to the former Texas A&M pass rusher's (entirely reasonable) demands on Friday evening, agreeing to a fully guaranteed contract worth nearly $19 million over four years. ESPN's Adam Schefter was first with the news.
Just in: Shemar Stewart and the Cincinnati Bengals reached agreement on a four-year, fully guaranteed $18.97 million contract that includes a $10.4 million signing bonus, per his agent Zac Hiller of LAA.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 25, 2025
Every 2025 first-round pick now has a deal. pic.twitter.com/LU3vRJEl9v
Stewart reportedly agreed to the void language at issue, and in exchange the Bengals have agreed to move up $500,000 of his signing bonus to be paid out immediately. Stewart becomes the 32nd and final first-round pick to sign with his team. New England Patriots running back Quinshon Judkins is the last unsigned rookie in the 2025 class, although his status remains up in the air for far more serious reasons after he was arrested on misdemeanor domestic battery charges earlier this month.
This is a huge sigh of relief for Bengals fans, as Stewart officially joins the fold just days into the start of training camp. This defense needs all the help it can get, especially with Trey Hendrickson's status also up in the air, and now everyone can focus on giving Joe Burrow the help he needs to make another Super Bowl run.
Once that relief wears off, though, Cincinnati might be left wondering why their team put everyone through this emotional ringer in the first place. Especially when this was always how it was going to end.
Bengals' contract standoff with Shemar Stewart was nothing but an ugly waste of time
NFL teams have to make tough choices in a salary cap world, but it's hard to shake the feeling that this entire standoff was a waste of time, one that could have serious ramifications moving forward even with Stewart finally signed. Sure, the Bengals technically "won" here; the language at issue in Stewart's contract, which makes it easier to void future guarantees for a number of reasons, remains, and an extra $500,000 up front hardly breaks the bank. But that's the entire point: Rather than losing one battle in the name of winning the war, Cincinnati dug its heels in and dragged this out for as long as it could.
Of course, this has never been a franchise particularly capable of reading which way the wind is blowing. Short-sighted moves in the name of saving a little bit of money has been the Bengals' MO since ... well, since always, really. Cincinnati was always fighting over small potatoes, as evidenced by the fact that plenty of other teams already managed to acquiesce to new void language in the name of getting their player signed.
Some might say that angering the guy you chose in the first round, at a crucial position of need ahead of an all-in season, isn't worth that chump change. But that's just the way this team does business; ask Hendrickson all about that, as he continues to twist in the wind despite being the one salvageable thing about the Bengals defense over the last couple of seasons. The damage done both to Cincy's progress on the field and its reputation off of it certainly isn't worth whatever extra security was gained here.