The ‘nuclear option’ Shemar Stewart could take in his contract dispute with the Cincinnati Bengals

Shemar Stewart could re-enter the draft in 2026

Via Article 6 of the CBA, Stewart could sit out the entire 2025 season if he doesn’t reach a deal with the Bengals, and then re-enter the draft in 2026.

That would make him eligible for every team to draft but Cincinnati, ensuring a new destination for the start of his professional career.

If a Drafted Rookie has not signed a Player Contract during the period from the date of such Draft to the thirtieth day prior to the first game of the regular season: (i) the Club that drafted the player may not thereafter trade to another Club either its exclusive negotiating rights to such player or any Player Contract that it signs with such player for the player’s initial League Year; and (ii) the Club that drafted the player is the only Club with which the player may sign a Player Contract until the day of the Draft in the subsequent League Year, at which time such player is eligible to be drafted in the subsequent League Year’s Draft by any Club except the Club that drafted him in the initial Draft. (After the Tuesday following the tenth week of the regular season, the player and the Club may sign a Player Contract only for future League Year(s)).

 

NFL CBA, Article 6

This is very much a nuclear option, and one that no player has taken in the modern era. The last player to refuse to sign their rookie contract and be redrafted the following year was former Las Vegas Raiders legend Bo Jackson, but in a slight difference, he eschewed his football contract (with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) to play baseball for a year.

There are also examples like Jim Kelly and Steve Young, who were able to parlay interest from rival leagues such as the USFL into contracts elsewhere, although they would later return to their drafted teams, both becoming Hall Of Famers, albeit Young was after a trade to the San Francisco 49ers.

Would, and can, Shemar Stewart sit out a year?

One thing that all those players had in common was simple – leverage, and/or what would be colloquially known as ‘somewhere else to go’. As it stands, Stewart has neither, and faces a choice between the Bengals or no one in 2025.

Given that he was one of the less-experienced and raw prospects in the first round of the draft, any loss of football would probably not be particularly helpful to his career.