Cincinnati Bengals’ Shemar Stewart’s holdout has a surprising beneficiary not too far from home

Recent reports have him back training at his former school Texas A&M, and although this is not especially unusual at this point in the offseason, it has increased the speculation that the holdout will continue, and possibly end with Stewart not playing for the team at all.

However, Cincinnati has a couple of issues on their plate this offseason, and their ongoing contretemps with Stewart may actually be having an unintended consequence elsewhere.

Shemar Stewart’s standoff has an unexpected winner, his teammate

As the Bengals look to bounce back from a disappointing 2024, largely caused by their defense, which continued to ship points and resulted in the team losing a number of high-scoring shootouts, long-time defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo has moved on to the Indianapolis Colts, leaving new coordinator Al Golden trying to find a way to put the pieces together.

Drafting Stewart was hoped to enhance and possibly begin to replace some of the ageing pieces of their pass rush, adding some juice to a defensive line that was largely populated by veterans. One of those veterans is fellow rusher Trey Hendrickson, and he may be the unintended beneficiary of Stewart’s malaise.

Here are all 4 sacks and 6 pressures from Trey Hendrickson from yesterday pic.twitter.com/iWb7OL2dRg

— mike (@bengals_sans) November 4, 2024

Ultimately, it’s a two-way street; Stewart was likely drafted to offset against the potential loss of Hendrickson, who has been openly disgruntled with his contract for some time, or, in the event a deal could be worked out with Hendrickson, to play alongside him and turn the team into a more formidable defensive unit. While neither remains true, the Bengals’ defensive unit is significantly weaker.

Therefore, in a peculiar way, both these Bengals contract standoffs are giving leverage to each other — Hendrickson cannot be replaced, and arguably gains value, while Stewart remains out of contract, and there’s more incentive for the Bengals to get a deal done with Stewart while Hendrickson remains on the sidelines.

Neither dispute looks likely to end any time soon

So, who blinks first? The answer is neither, most likely. Stewart has the ability to re-enter the draft if he sits out the entire season (something the NFL media seems to be currently failing to report), and Hendrickson, for his part, is one of the most proven players at an in-demand position in the league, so there’s always likely to be other options for him too.

It’s time for the Bengals to step up and sort this out. It’s all well and good paying their offensive players like Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but their success or failure will depend (and the 2024 season proves it) on their ability to put together a strong team unit, including their defense. Without Hendrickson or Stewart, that’s going to be much harder.

In Hendrickson’s case, he’s earned the deal he’s seeking by becoming one of the prominent pass rushers in the league over his tenure in Ohio, whereas Stewart doesn’t appear to be asking for anything out of the ordinary in contract negotiations. This feels like prudence for the sake of it, and it could be about to cost the team a productive 2025 season.