Bengals' Shemar Stewart takes unprecedented step toward returning to Texas A&M amid contract holdout

With each passing day, there's a bit of a stronger feeling that Shemar Stewart may somehow wind up not playing for the Cincinnati Bengals.

The first-round pick from Texas A&M is holding out due to specific language demands in his contract negotiations that aren't being met.

And now, CBS Sports reporter Bud Elliott has shared that Stewart is back in College Station working out with his former Texas A&M team. There's the idea that he might go back to school and enter the draft again next year.

"It may not be legal yet, but then again, everything in the NCAA is subject to litigation," Elliott said. "I didn't know you could do this. I knew you could do this in baseball... I don't know why you could do it in baseball but not football. You probably have to go to court."

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Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio wrote about this earlier in the offseason, too. Florio, though, shared a specific passage from the Collective Bargaining Agreement that essentially suggests Stewart could go back to school but then would still be considered a Bengals draft pick after the season.

Here's that Florio breakdown:

"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."

This would certainly be unprecedented by Stewart, and if he pulls it off, it could set a wild new trend that would change college football and the NFL Draft forever.

At this point, that may just be what happens.

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