The Bengals Must Handle the Shemar Stewart Situation Carefully Ahead of Trade Deadline

James Rapien (0:00)

The Bengals are hoping to make it not one, not two, but three straight wins this Sunday against the Tennessee Titans. Will Shemar Stewart be active, or will his inactive streak continue? Is he a trade candidate? What the Bengals are gonna do with Shemar Stewart, what I would do with Shemar Stewart, and much, much more right now on Cincinnati Bengals Talk.

It's Bengals, it's Titans on Sunday. It will have a complete game preview on Friday. But the latest from Paycore Stadium, well, it involves Shemar Stewart. And it involves Shemar Stewart because Shemar Stewart was a healthy inactive on Sunday in the win over the Baltimore Ravens. And it's one of those things where it's time to have a discussion for sure when it comes to Shemar Stewart, when it comes to his future. And Al Golden discussed the decision to make Shemar inactive, how disappointed he is, was, is he disappointed at all? Plus, I want you to hear what Zac Taylor had to say about the trade deadline, Joe Burrow as well, that coming up in just a second. Let's start with what I would do with Shemar Stewart here.

Because for me, Shemar Stewart came into the league as a project. He wasn't in my big six here on Cincinnati Bengals Talk for the 17th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. And yet I see the talent. Like if you've heard me talk about Shemar Stewart, it's gonna feel very pro Shemar Stewart. I get what the Bengals saw.

But when they saw that, they also saw a raw talent. They also saw someone that needed a lot of work, needed a lot of development. And the reality is he's missed the majority of training camp in his two years. All of training camp this year, some training camp last year in the entire off season program, essentially.

That matters. And I think that's a major factor here as we try to discuss the Shemar Stewart present.

The past impacts the present, which impacts the future, which impacts what you think, because I think there are a lot of people out there that say trade Shemar Stewart.

I'm going to make it very, very clear. I do not expect the Bengals to trade Shemar Stewart. I do not think they're going to. I don't think they're really entertaining the idea of shopping Shemar Stewart. And they shouldn't. They shouldn't be calling anyone to see if they're interested in trading for Shemar Stewart. Now they may get calls, but I would not proactively shop Shemar Stewart at all. Period. Done. Doesn't matter. Wouldn't do it.

And some may say, well, why wouldn't you do it? Pretty simple for me. You're trying to win now. You're foreign to you're expecting to win the division. There's a lot of advanced metrics that say, you're the best team in your division. You look at DVOA this week and it's basically evaluating the entire roster, how they've played top to bottom. The Bengals ranked top 10 in offense, defense and special teams, second overall in the league behind the 49ers. And that evaluates each and every game, each and every week for each and every team.

And so for me, you're one injury away from Shemar Stewart playing significant snaps. Maybe Cedric Johnson takes another step back. Maybe Shemar Stewart continues to develop. Like he's a factor. He can matter very, very quickly, even if he continues to be a healthy scratch. So that's part of it. And you're in win now mode. And so when Jeremy Fowler, VSPN reporting on Wednesday morning, like, yeah, you know, day three pick, well, he was the 17th overall pick 18 months ago. I'm good. Like if you're going to invest that in him 18 months ago, and he's going to miss both rounds or all of training camp this year specifically, due to an injury, an injury that would have caused a lot of guys to be out for the season, but he's such a freak athlete that he's still able to play this year. You combine all that together and I'm just like, all right, we'll give it a little more time. Give it a little more time. These comments, by the way, from Al Golden on bengalstalk.com, Jay Morrison wrote about it. Make sure you check it out. Great resource throughout the season and certainly throughout the week. Here's part of what Al Golden said. He said, quote, I'm not discouraged at all in Shemar. I'm really not. I think that was unfortunate, him being inactive. I was really hoping to see him take a big jump last week, and I have the same hope as I sit here today. I'm disappointed for him. This has been a hard start, and obviously the injuries and the health and all of those things. Look, the bottom line with Shemar Stewart is how he responds to being healthy and active last week on Sunday. It's going to be everything when it comes to his Bengals tenure. He can shut down, he can turtle up, he can say, I'm going to go do it somewhere else, or we can flip it the other way. Tyler Boyd is the example I'll give. I'm going to tell two stories, one that's public, one that's not as public. I might have mentioned it at times, but it's certainly not out there to a degree because it was a conversation between me and Tyler Boyd. Tyler Boyd was a healthy inactive in year two.