Bengals Sign Rookie Shemar Stewart Amid Team Changes

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00:00Shamar Stewart, the rookie, 17th overall pick of the Bengals, has finally signed his deal,

00:04participated in a training camp practice, you know, dusting off the rust and all of that stuff,

00:10you know, affable personality. We heard from him earlier in the show a little bit and talking about

00:14the heat out there and then just sort of getting acclimated to Cincy weather and everything. But

00:20how big a deal is this now that, you know, the I's have been dotted, T's have been crossed and

00:26everything. We could just move on, right? A couple of things. Yes, but it was something that did not

00:32need to be done. So the word around the league was very simple. They wanted to adjust the standard

00:38language in Stewart's contract. And it's something they had not done before. Like, there's what's

00:45called default language. If you do something you're not supposed to, we could void all the

00:49guarantees going forward. But they wanted to adjust the language with it and to make it even tougher.

00:54And give us agent Zach Hiller credit and he stood up to it. And the Bengals, you know,

01:00Bengals finally did the right thing. And they, they, they didn't, they didn't include it in the

01:06contract as I understand it. But man, it, it, Adam, the answer with it, this is just not needed.

01:10They didn't need to do this because you got the Trey Henderson situation. We got the club saying,

01:15oh, we're making progress. The players saying, no, we're not. So you got that situation. And let's not

01:19forget. And the Bengals have a new defense coordinator, Al Golden, who used to coach,

01:23he was the head coach at Temple, University of Miami. He's been an assistant in the college

01:28football. He's been assistant in the national football league. I remember when he was with the

01:30Lions, he's installing a new defense here. Luana Romo's out. He's now with Indy and they got to get

01:36this thing going. Now, one thing that Shamar Stewart, because he's got good size, you might

01:40see him being moved around a little bit. He might be able to play inside a nickel. You know, you see

01:44defensive ends who have good size. Sometimes they, they play the tackle position in past version

01:48situations, but they need it. Cause Adam, you know, if you look at their defense,

01:53Miles Murphy, their third round pick, excuse me, the first round pick three years ago,

01:56it hasn't worked out yet. He hasn't performed well enough. Sam Hubbard, one of the starting

02:00DNs, he retired. So they need to get this done here and getting Stewart in here now where there's

02:05plenty of training camp is paramount.

02:06Let's go to the AFC North and it's a very interesting division, uh, almost top to bottom,

02:14but in particular, kind of in the middle, I mean, the Ravens have this Superbowl or bus mentality,

02:19and we know what Baltimore expects to be. And again, the betting favorite largely to win the

02:23Superbowl anywhere you look. And this is a team that, you know, it's, it's just, they're waiting

02:26for Lamar Jackson to basically prove it in the playoffs. Now the regular season guy almost won MVP

02:31last year. Again, he's incredible, but got to get it done when it matters most. And can he do what he did

02:36again? Can Derek Henry replicate his performance from year one in Baltimore? All of this with a

02:41very tough schedule in front of them behind them, Cincinnati, this team we're just talking about

02:46here with, you know, a, a Bengals team that, you know, has a, is coming off a couple of down years,

02:52underwhelming anyway, late playoff pushes that don't quite materialize plus two 60 to win this

02:58division. Probably not a lot, a lot of people at them believe that's going to happen, but

03:02Bengals, you know, this schedule is not that bad. It's really not grueling and we can show people

03:08what it looks like. It's, it's pretty easy off the top and a relatively easy finish. If you're

03:13healthy, the middle slightly more grueling, but it begins in Cleveland, a team that, you know,

03:19should be a laughingstock of this league and, you know, at home against Jacksonville at Minnesota,

03:23I don't think the Vikings are going to be what they were last year. And again, it wraps with

03:27games against Miami and Arizona. So I don't know. It was the slow start that did them in last year

03:32injuries, of course, along the way as well. What do you expect from this Bengals team other than

03:37Stewart? Yeah. Weeks three, three through seven for that Bengals schedule. That's when it gets harder.

03:43It's going to, it's going to come down because they could be competitive defensively. They were

03:45not last season for the most part. And you can't have that because you're putting way too much in

03:50Joe Burrow. And you know, another thing, Adam, I want to add, and I'm hoping to see the Bengals on my

03:53training camp tour, you know, they've not gotten right on their offensive line for many years.

03:57Now, Mary Smith is their left tackle. You know, they feel good about him, but it, it, on the

04:02interior has not been good enough. It's just got, that's been the problem with Joe Burrow. He's

04:06great, but around him on the offensive line, it hasn't been. I know some people criticize the

04:11Bengals. Why T Higgins is a very good player. Why are you making the highest paid number two

04:15receiver in the national football league? When you already have the highest paid receiver,

04:18number one, highest paid receiver in NFL history and Jamar Chase. So that was a little bit

04:22questionable to me. It's, but the offense, if they could just protect bar a little

04:26better, it's going to be phenomenal. It's their defense. And by the way, in the back

04:31end, they're not great. And you and I just talked about their pass rush. It starts with

04:35their pass rush. They've got to get it going and they got to get Hendrickson in camp.

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