Shemar Stewart has a chance, maybe, to do something no football player has done before.
There’s a path, albeit an unlikely one, for the holding out Stewart to return and play college football at Texas A&M this fall.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio originally suggested the idea for Shedeur Sanders as he slid in the NFL Draft, and now he brings it back out here.
Florio wrote this on Thursday:
“This is something that we contemplated during the 2025 draft both as to quarterback Shedeur Sanders and quarterback Quinn Ewers — Stewart could try to return to college for the upcoming season. Even though it would require an actual or threatened legal battle against the NCAA, the rule that prevents a player who has been drafted but who hasn’t signed an NFL contract from returning to college football could be susceptible to an attack under the antitrust laws.
“Somewhat surprisingly, the CBA contemplates the possibility that a drafted player will instead go back to college. Here’s the language, from Article 6, Section 6: “If any college football player who becomes eligible for the Draft prior to exhausting his college football eligibility through participation is drafted by an NFL Club, and returns to college, the drafting Club’s exclusive right to negotiate and sign a Player Contract with such player shall continue through the date of the Draft that follows the last season in which the player was eligible to participate in college football, and thereafter the player shall be treated and the Club shall have such exclusive rights as if he were drafted in such Draft by such Club (or assignee Club).”
“In English, this means that, if Stewart returns to college football in 2025, he’d be treated as a draft pick of the Bengals in 2026. Which means that he wouldn’t be permitted to re-enter the draft next year.”
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Stewart also has the converse option of not signing at all through next year’s draft, when he’d then be eligible to be chosen by any team other than the Bengals. But in that scenario, he’d spend a whole football season not playing football.
The Bengals have enough problems with trying to extend Trey Hendrickson that to have its other best defensive end holding out before even playing an NFL snap is particularly brutal.
Cincinnati has to figure it out, because it can’t afford to lose Stewart in a groundbreaking manner. Texas A&M fans probably wouldn’t mind, but it doesn’t seem like Stewart would really want to do that, would he?
Something isn’t right here, though, and the Bengals and Stewart have to try and find some common ground.
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