The Bengals agreed to a concession on the payout structure of the deal in exchange for Stewart accepting contract language on voiding future guarantees that the team had been seeking, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations, who added that other teams have similar language in players’ deals. The Bengals previously had been unwilling to offer a concession in another area to get their preferred contract language.
The NFL’s rookie pay system, originally implemented as part of the 2011 labor agreement between the team owners and the players union, leaves relatively little to be negotiated in a contract. The length of the deal is predetermined, and the overall value of the contract is all but set by the player’s draft position. Issues such as the portion of guaranteed money and elements of the contract language are what remain to be negotiated.
Stewart, chosen 17th overall, and the Bengals had been at an impasse over the contract language related to the team’s ability to void future guarantees in the deal based on any misbehavior.
“This one is surprising,” Bengals owner Mike Brown said at a news conference Monday. “I hesitate to get into the detail. But basically it turns on whether [future] years are guaranteed if he gets involved in conduct detrimental to football. … We say if he got involved in conduct detrimental, we’d have the right to terminate the guaranteed part for the back years. He says — or his agent says — ‘Oh no, you can terminate the guaranteed part only for the remaining part of the year in which the event occurs.’”
