Why the Bengals’ Battle Over Technical Contract Language Could Backfire at the Worst Possible Moment

Win or lose, every team claims they’re all about that championship grind. Yet deep down, the real game behind the scenes? It’s all about the bottom line — the cold, hard cash. Now, the Bengals don’t bother sneaking around pretending otherwise. They wear their profit-driven heart on their sleeve. But here’s the kicker: obsessing over money has a sneaky way of messing with what matters most—performance on the field. Remember what Carson Palmer said back in ’19? If dollars trump wins, the house’s already stacked against you. Last season’s contract woes with Ja’Marr Chase? A prime example of how that mindset can backfire, sidelining player readiness and costing crucial games. Fast forward to this year, and the Bengals are tangled up in the same money battles—with new faces like Shemar Stewart caught in the crossfire. It’s not just about saving a buck anymore; it’s about control, power, and who calls the shots. Meanwhile, the clock ticks down to Week 1, and these standoffs could leave Cincinnati’s playoff hopes hanging by a thread. The team’s talent, especially Joe Burrow, keeps them afloat for now. But if the front office doesn’t rethink its playbook, history might just repeat itself. LEARN MORE

And so the notoriously slow-starting Bengals, who would have made the playoffs last year if they’d only managed to beat the Patriots, are once again stacking the deck against themselves. For what?Frankly, it’s amazing the Bengals are currently as good as they are. One of the biggest reasons for that is the presence of quarterback Joe Burrow. This year, they’re at it again. After somehow managing to get Chase and receiver Tee Higgins to not drive the hardest bargains they could, the Bengals face a fight over dollars with pass rusher Trey Hendrickson. That one was predictable, and largely unavoidable.Last year, the Bengals allowed a contract dispute with receiver Ja’Marr Chase to impair his preparation for the regular season. He didn’t know whether he’d play in Week 1 against the Patriots until 90 minutes before kickoff. And the Bengals lost that day to a New England team that otherwise went 3-13.While there’s a financial component at play in the event that (1) Stewart is a bust, (2) the Bengals want to cut him but not pay him, and (3) Stewart commits a default that allows the guaranteed money to be voided, this seems as if this is less about pinching pennies and more about power.

Most teams act like they’re obsessed with winning. All teams are obsessed with making as much money as possible.To their credit, the Bengals don’t pretend to be trying to count anything other than dollars. To their detriment, the obsession with profit can — and does — get in the way of performance.”[I]f the most important thing is the financials and the second-most important thing is winning, then you don’t have a chance,” former Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer said of the team in 2019. “And it’s so important that ownership is willing to do what it takes to win.”And if they don’t truly change their ways, Burrow should eventually do the same thing Palmer did.At this point, it’s not about winning games or making money. It’s about showing the players who’s boss. And it’s potentially impairing the team’s ability to be as ready as it can be when Week 1 rolls around in only 85 days.The other one was neither. At a time when the Bengals needed to have first-round rookie edge rusher Shemar Stewart in the fold and ready to roll, the Bengals decided to tweak the default language in their standard rookie deal and draw a line in the sand over it. They’ve also refused (so far) to make any concessions elsewhere in the menu of negotiable terms in order to get Stewart to accept an esoteric adjustment to the boilerplate portion of their copy/paste contracts.But the front office doesn’t care about that. It cares about money. It cares about control. It cares about getting Stewart to cry uncle and accept new contract language with nothing in return for it.It’s not even about money, at least not directly. Like it was when former Bengals cornerback Jonathan Joseph explained players couldn’t take Gatorade home and had to share hotel rooms on road trips. Or when the team didn’t gather at a local hotel the night before home games, allowing players to stay out all night and show up for work hungover — or still drunk.Remember how this started. Stewart dared to refuse to participate in offseason practices without a signed contract. (At a time when most contracts are negotiated quickly after the draft, NO player should practice without a formal deal in place.) The Bengals presumably didn’t like that. So now they’re being stubborn about their desire to cram new (for the Bengals) contract language into Stewart’s deal, insisting on a unilateral change in procedure with no apparent willingness to offer a corresponding concession.