Bengals' Duke Tobin turns heads with comments on Shemar Stewart's agent

The Cincinnati Bengals are starting up training camp this week and before that happens both director of player personnel Duke Tobin and owner Mike Brown addressed contract negotiations with first-round pick Shemar Stewart.

Stewart has not signed his rookie contract yet as the two sides continue to battle over language in his deal. Based on comments made by Tobin and Brown, the Bengals are fed up.

Brown called the situation "silliness" and Tobin went fully in on Stewart's agent, who he says is giving the rookie bad advice.

"I think Shemar needs to be here... I’m not going to blame Shemar. He is listening to the advice he is paying for. I don’t understand or believe or agree with the advice but I’m not the one paying for it," Tobin said, per The Athletic's Paul Dehner Jr.

"If I felt we were treating him unfairly as it relates to all the other draft picks in this year’s draft then maybe it would be a different story. But we are not. I don’t really understand where things are there," Tobin added.

Shots fired.

It appears Stewart has two issues with his contract.

According to Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Bengals want language in Stewart's contract that leaves the door open to void future guarantees.

ESPN's Jeremy Fowler adds that Cincinnati is basically asking Stewart to "take a pay decrease from where last year's No. 17 pick, Dallas Turner, in Minnesota got with certain bonuses."

"Usually those numbers go up every year, as far as like the percentage guarantee his, to my understanding, was going down," Fowler said. "So that's problematic and that's something he's not willing to accept, but we'll see what training camp pressure applies. Sometimes that can change minds a little bit."

The more time Stewart misses in practice, the less likely he is to be ready to make a significant contribution early on in the season, which is especially troublesome given the uncertainty surrounding Trey Hendrickson.

But the team expressed optimism on that front on Monday, with Tobin and Brown saying they hope to get something done soon.

It didn't seem possible for Stewart's situation to get any worse than Hendrickson's, but it appears we might be at that point.