The Most Traditional Day on the Bengals Calendar Pivoted in Surprising, Likely Unhelpful Way

CINCINNATI – So much about the Cincinnati Bengals’ annual pre-camp luncheon is about tradition, from the itinerary to the mock turtle soup.

But Monday, there was a noticeable departure.

An evolution, as director of player personnel Duke Tobin would say.

The front office almost never discusses details of contraction negotiations, but after rookie first-round pick Shemar Stewart put the franchise on blast last month followed by his agent Zac Hiller making the media rounds and detailing the sticking points, Tobin and team owner and president Mike Brown took a different approach.

In the past, questions about an unsigned first-round pick or extension-seeking veteran would have elicited responses about how important the players are, how hard both sides are working and how hopeful the front office is hoping to finalize a deal.

But Monday, Tobin sounded frustrated while explaining the organization’s stance and offered some pointed criticism of Hiller.

“I’m not going to blame Shemar,” Tobin said. “He's listening to the advice that he's paying for. I don’t understand or believe or agree with the advice.

“If I thought we were treating him unfairly as it relates to all the other draft picks in this year's draft, then maybe it'd be a different story,” Tobin added. “But we're not. Again, I don't fully understand where things are there.”

The standoff centers around language the Bengals want to put in Stewart’s contract that would void whatever guaranteed money remains should he miss time due to a violation of league rules or the law.

No previous Bengals first-round picks have had that language in their contract.

Many other franchises put that language in their contracts, both this year and in recent years.

“Everyone evolves but Cincinnati is what you're saying,” Tobin said. “It really doesn't make any sense to say that Cincinnati doesn't get to evolve their contracts, yet the rest of the league evolves their contracts. I don't buy into that philosophy at all.

“Contracts evolve,” he continued. “I've been in it 30 years. They've evolved every year for 30 years. They evolve in good ways for players. Signing bonuses go up. That's an evolution. Guarantees get extended further down the draft. That's an evolution. You can't just say you want the positive evolutions … We're not asking for anything anybody isn't already doing. So do I feel badly about it? I do not.”

Hiller clapped back at Tobin after seeing his comments on social media with some of his strongest criticism yet in a phone call with Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio.

“Duke Tobin has had no involvement in this negotiation,” Hiller said. “It seems to be above his pay grade.”

The pre-camp luncheon is the only time Brown speaks publicly all year.

When he was asked about Stewart and the language in the comment, he broke tradition as well by diving into the details.

And in so doing, Brown went to an extreme hypothetical that isn’t going to bring the two sides any closer to a resolution.

“His agent wants it to be so that if he acted in a terrible fashion – this is all hypothetical – something that rises to the level of going to prison, that we would be on the line for the guarantee for the future years that hadn't been paid,” Brown said. “Our position is if that happens, we're not going to be paying someone who is sitting in jail. That's not what we're going to do.

“It is a negotiation that has reached the level of, I can only think of a word I shouldn't use here, but it's silliness,” Brown added.

The Bengals have made a lot of changes in the way they operate since Joe Burrow arrived in 2020.

Many of them have been well received.

But even when it was time to negotiate a historic extension that would make Burrow the highest paid player in the league, both sides kept the negotiations in house. Not only was there no public comment, there were no leaks.

Monday felt like the opening of a dam.

It was nearly six weeks ago when a frustrated Stewart said the team was more interested in winning arguments than games after the first practice of minicamp.

Defensive end Trey Hendrickson also has been critical of the team and held an on-field news conference as his teammates were practicing to take his own shots while explaining his side.

“Obviously I don’t like things like that,” Tobin said of the Stewart and Hendrickson comments. “I try not to fan those flames at all. Those two guys are guys I have tremendous regard for. Trey and Shemar, we wouldn’t have them here if we didn’t believe in them as people and players. Things like this happen in the NFL. We accept it. We don’t internalize it.

“We’re not trying to hold grudges or anything like that,” Tobin said. “We have to do what’s best for our football team. If I thought we were being unfair in ways, it would be a different story. But I don’t.”

Tradition suggests there eventually will be a deal.

The Bengals have only failed to sign one first-round pick in team history, and that was 41 years ago with linebacker Rickey Hunley, whom they ended up trading in October.

But tradition splintered Monday, and neither side benefitted from it.

One that remains is Brown bedrock optimism.

“I think eventually that's going to happen,” he said of reaching a deal with Stewart. “I don't think it's going to happen today or tomorrow, but at some point it will."