Bengals Owner Mike Brown on Shemar Stewart Contract Stall: ‘We’re Not Paying Someone to Sit in Jail’

Bengals owner Mike Brown issued a blunt response regarding the stalled contract negotiations for rookie first-round pick Shemar Stewart.

Speaking with The Cincinnati Enquirer, Brown insisted that his team will not grant Stewart’s agent’s demand that the team honor his $18.97 million contract over four years with no exceptions, including jail time.

“If we get a player that gets involved in something like that, or does something that is just unacceptable, then guess what? I don’t want to pay him,” Brown said.

“We say that if he got involved in conduct detrimental [to football], we’d have the right to terminate the guaranteed part of the back years. His agent says, ‘Oh, no, you can terminate the guaranteed part only for the remaining part of the year in which the event occurred.’ Oddly, something like this has never occurred in my memory with us. I don’t think it’s gonna occur. So, we’re sitting here arguing over something that I think is pretty remote,” Brown added.

According to CBS Sports, Stewart has demanded that his contract be “fully guaranteed, which means as soon as he signs, he’ll be entitled to the full $18.97 million over the course of his four-year contract.”

“On the other hand, the Bengals want the ability to void some of those guarantees if Stewart should violate any NFL policies that might require a suspension or if he breaks the law,” added the outlet.

Bengals director of personnel Duke Tobin said during the team’s media luncheon on Monday that he hopes Shemar Stewart comes on board sooner rather than later. However, he did not fault Shemar for simply listening to his legal representation. Stewart has refused to back down.

“I’m 100 percent right,” Stewart said .”I’m not asking for nothing you all have never done before, but in you all case, you all just want to win an argument instead of winning more games.”

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