Shemar Stewart’s agent talks about ongoing contract negotiations and holdout

The Bengals’ first-round pick left minicamp early without a contract.

The Cincinnati Bengals and first-round draft pick Shemar Stewart have yet to reach an agreement on a rookie contract, which has led to a rare holdout from the unsigned draft pick.

Stewart joined the Bengals for both rookie minicamp and regular minicamp, but during Rookie Mini Camp did not participate in any on-field drills and did the same in minicamp before leaving early and unsigned.

With the saga still ongoing, Stewart’s agent, Zac Hiller, joined Solomon Wilcots and Christian Fauria on SiriusXM NFL Radio Monday to talk more about Stewart’s reasoning for holding out and the latest on contract negotiations.

Here are some quotes from the Q/A via Mike Petraglia of ESPN1530:

Hiller: “Obviously my job, and all agents’ job, is to protect the players. Simply put, Shemar would, of course, love for his contract to be as protective as the rest of his Bengals teammates in the past. And, simply put, the way the contract currently reads is not as protective.”

Wilcots: “In what way is he not protected?”

Hiller: “In the way that when you sign the contract and your money is guaranteed, let’s say, it should be guaranteed. And if there’s ways to get out of that it would not be as beneficial to the player.”

Hiller: “Contracts are based on precedent. So, when Shemar has never asked for anything more or less protective than any of his teammates, it’s a simple fix. It’s just say, hey, this is the precedent. Let’s keep the precedent.

Hiller: “It’s essentially that when a player signs his contract and it’s guaranteed, it should be completely, fully guaranteed. Obviously if there’s certain circumstances that happen, the team should be able to void. However, again, if you want to make changes to your precedent, it should be a negotiation. It should be give and take. It shouldn’t just be, Hey, we’re changing this and sign it or go scratch.”

Hiller: “All he wants to do is be a Cincinnati Bengal. This guy was so excited to get drafted by Cincinnati. All he wants to do is be a Bengal. All he wanted to do was be on the field and show the Cincinnati fans the incredible specimen, person, football player that this team was lucky to draft where they drafted. And he’s not been allowed to do that.”

Let’s hope this gets resolved sooner rather than later.