As the 2025 NFL season inches closer, a high-profile looming rookie contract holdout stole the spotlight.
Pass rusher Shemar Stewart, who was selected by the Bengals in the first round of April's NFL Draft, still hasn't participated in any team activities, as he was holding out for tweaked language in his rookie deal.
With that situation ongoing for months, reports then indicated that Stewart has been practicing at Texas A&M facilities, where he spent three seasons and became one of the best defensive prospects in the country. That led to the question — could Stewart potentially return to the Aggies for the 2025 season, abandoning his NFL duties with no contract signed?
However, on Friday, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that Stewart and the Bengals had agreed to a contract, ending his holdout.
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Here's what to know about what Stewart's options to play football this upcoming season would have been if he couldn't agree to a deal with Cincinnati.
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Shemar Stewart holdout, explained
Stewart's holdout wasn't only about the money he'd receive over his rookie deal. The reason he skipped workouts while speaking to the media about contract negotiations is because the Bengals were attempting to introduce newer language in his deal regarding a "default clause," per former NFL executive Andrew Brandt.
The clause would have allowed Cincinnati to void future guarantees if Stewart were to get in any trouble, whether for conduct on or off the field. It would virtually give the Bengals at least a little bit of room to get out of his contract, if necessary.
The reason Stewart has been adamant about not having the clause is that neither of the Bengals' past two first-rounders had that tidbit in their contracts.
"I'm 100 percent right," Stewart said."I'm not asking for nothing y'all have never done before, but in y'all case, y'all just want to win an argument instead of winning more games."
Bengals owner Mike Brown spoke on the contract situation with Stewart, per Paul Dehner Jr., saying that the dispute had risen to a level of "silliness." The team's director of player personnel, Duke Tobin, also commented on it.
"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 reportedly said. "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."
The stalemate continued for months between the two sides, adding yet another contract holdout to the Bengals' growing list of stars to do so over the past year, including Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Trey Hendrickson.
However, it finally came to an end on Friday when Stewart and the Bengals agreed on a four-year, fully guaranteed $18.97 million contract that includes a $10.4 million signing bonus.
Can Shemar Stewart return to college?
CBS Sports' Bud Elliott said on the "Cover 3 Podcast" that Stewart had been "fully involved in workouts" with Texas A&M's football team, which he departed for the NFL Draft after the 2024 season. Prior to Stewart signing his deal, Elliott said that a source told him that "Shemar might end up back here" with the Aggies, and "he could try to come back and play again this season and go into the draft again next year."
wait… so Bengals 1st round pick Shemar Stewart left the team & went back to school to practice with Texas A&M?
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) July 15, 2025
and he might not play this year in the NFL, return to college instead and then enter the 2026 NFL draft??? pic.twitter.com/WUdN6vDHzx
However, there are NCAA rules that forbid players from returning to college after they've been drafted, unless Stewart took legal action, potentially challenging those eligibility rules regarding the draft. Hypothetically, if Stewart had successfully challenged and was able to return to the Aggies (or another college team) in 2025, then he could re-enter the NFL Draft in 2026.
Stewart did not pursue legal action, but he did have a few other options outside of simply settling his contract dispute with the Bengals.
For one, if his holdout lasted until the new league year next March, he could have re-entered the draft. Cincinnati would have held his rights until that point, and there has never been a real case quite like that scenario, but technically, Stewart could have not played football at all in 2025, stayed in shape, then re-entered the 2026 NFL Draft. If he did that, the Bengals would not have been allowed to draft him again. If a rookie doesn't sign their deal by the Tuesday following Week 10 of the season, then they cannot play at all that season.
What was perhaps slightly more likely was that Stewart could have asked for a trade from the Bengals, seeking out another team to give him the contract language he's desiring. However, that would have had to come to fruition by early August, as NFL rules say that a team can only trade a rookie at least 30 days from the start of the regular season.
So, based on current NCAA/NFL rules, there were three routes for Stewart during his holdout, and returning to college wasn't one of them. As he eventually did, he could have agreed to his Bengals deal, request (and potentially be granted) a trade, or hold out throughout the entire 2025 season and re-enter the 2026 draft.
The only other way that Stewart could have gained some leverage would have been legally challenging the NCAA rules that forbid a player from returning to college after declaring for the draft — something that's not completely inconceivable with the many legal changes going on in college sports right now. However, unless that step was taken, the pass rusher could not have returned to Texas A&M or any college team.
Plus, other reports suggested that Stewart wasn't technically practicing with the Aggies' squad, anyway; he was rather using the team's facilities to prepare for the NFL. The Cincinnati Enquirer's Kelsey Conway reported that Stewart, who lives in Texas, is "training at A&M by himself using their facilities (very common) to get ready for the upcoming NFL season" and is "not with the Texas A&M team."
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko also shot down any rumors of Stewart returning to college, saying "there's no intentions of Shemar to play for the Aggies this year." He did confirm that Stewart was around the team and training on campus, but doing so in preparation to play for the Bengals, not the Aggies, Elko said.
A lot of hoops would have had to be jumped through for him to go back to college football, but Stewart ultimately settled his contract dispute with Cincinnati anyway.
Who is Shemar Stewart's agent?
Stewart's agent is Zac Hiller, who represented him throughout the contract situation. Hiller spoke about the ongoing holdout recently, saying on SiriusXM NFL Radio that his job is to "protect the players."
"Simply put, Shemar would, of course, love for his contract to be as protective as the rest of his Bengals teammates in the past. And, simply put, the way the contract currently reads is not as protective," Hiller said, per BengalsWire. “If you want to make changes to your precedent, it should be a negotiation. It should be give and take. It shouldn’t just be, ‘Hey, we’re changing this and sign it or go scratch.