NFL Insider Tom Pelissero Offers More Insight Into Ongoing Shemar Stewart Contract Saga

 NFL Network's Tom Pelissero appeared on The Rich Eisen Show this week and drove home what's holding up the Shemar Stewart contract situation with the Bengals.

It's been all quiet when it comes to any continuing negotiations between Stewart's camp and the Bengals after he was the only healthy NFL rookie to not participate in spring workouts.

Pelissero said Stewart has an issue with two factors in the contract offer.

"Generally, players will sign what's known as a participation agreement that protects you if something were to happen, injury or otherwise, Through the course of those practices here," Pelissero noted on the show. "It would ensure that you're taken care of financially. 

"Well, Shemar Stewart didn't want to sign the participation agreement that the Bengals had because of the way that theirs is worded, because every team has different language, it did not provide the same level of protection as other teams give their rookies. And in fact, he wasn't alone in that. Demetrius Knight, their second-round pick, also didn't practice on the first day with the Bengals because of the same issue. He ultimately showed up on Day 2. They got his contract done. But the argument in that case was, 'Hey, I should be treated like all the other rookies around the NFL.'"

Around the wheel we go.

The bottom line is Stewart has to sign a rookie deal at some point this fall or he will sit out an entire year of football after entering the league with just 4.5 college sacks.

One could argue no other 2025 first-round pick needs all these reps for their development more than Stewart, but he has chosen to sit while this all plays out. Time will tell who blinks first when it comes to the language in a rookie contract that is set monetarily.

"It's not that unusual for a player not to have signed," Pelissero concluded. "It's this dichotomy of, 'Well we can't do the Participation Agreement, because of what other team's language is but we also can't do the contract, because well this is what our language is.'"

Check out Pelissero's full explanation below: