Give Us The Chaos: Bengals 1st Round Pick Shemar Stewart Still Isn't Signed, Reportedly Could Try To Go Back And Play For Texas A&M Instead This Year

There's been just a little bit of a war between the Bengals and Shemar Stewart, their first round pick from this season. Long story short, basically him/his agent are pissed that the Bengals are trying to put in new language in his contract that gives them the right to void future guarantees. That's something that has been in contracts before, but not with rookie contracts. 

That led to Stewart holding out, not signing a deal and now fans fighting both sides. It also led to this story: 

[Source]- Shemar Stewart has reportedly been working out with the Texas A&M football team this summer, and could attempt to play at the school again if his Bengals contract isn't figured out.

Cover 3 podcast host Bud Elliott noted on the show that Stewart has been "fully involved" in the Aggies' workouts.

"A guy who has had some good (Texas) A&M stuff in the past, he hit me, he's like, 'Hey, Shemar might end up back here . . . He's been at College Station. He's been fully involved in workouts,'" Elliott noted on the show. "He could try to come back and play again this season and go into the draft again next year." 

As of now, Stewart isn't allowed to play for Texas A&M this coming season unless he goes to court to try and play. A move like this would not necessarily help Stewart because if he did get a waiver to play for A&M this season, then Cincinnati would retain his draft rights. They only lose those rights if he sits out of football entirely this fall and re-enters next spring.

Yes. In fact, hell yes. Give me this sort of chaos where we have a 1st round pick (with people saying it was a reach) go back to college, play there and the Bengals still hold his draft rights. That or he can not play at all, just work out and re-enter the Draft, which is now I think what I'm cheering for. College sports have enough problems with guys playing like 8 years of sports, don't think we can add this loophole where a guy gets an appeal and goes back to play again. 

Can we all just take a moment - whether you love or hate the Bengals - and think about how batshit crazy this has gotten? We're at the point where we have a report out there saying he's considering playing for Texas A&M again. NIL or not, you're talking about a first round pick in a contract war with his team and being like nah, I'm gonna just go here instead. Actually, the funniest outcome is still the Bengals drafting him if he sits out, re-enters the draft. 

This doesn't feel like our normal holdouts that we get every year. Those always seem to eventually work out when one side gives in and they show up like nothing happened. You have the threat - no matter how strong or weak it is - of just going to play for another team instead (pending appeal, obviously). I would say it's less than a 5% chance he gets the appeal to play at A&M again, but sitting out and just working out doesn't seem impossible at this point. Insane? Sure. But not impossible.