John Sheeran discusses the Cincinnati Bengals selection of Texas A&M pass rusher Shemar Stewart with the 17th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft!
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00:00The Bengals selected one of the most explosive players in the entire NFL draft,
00:04but there's also a lot of risk attached to him. So in this video,
00:06I'll explain where the pressure now resides in Cincinnati.
00:12Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here,
00:16and Shamar Stewart is the newest Cincinnati Bengal. Throughout this process, I have been
00:20weary of the Bengals taking Stewart. I always thought that it was a definite possibility
00:24with him being 21 years old, a five-star recruit from a big-time program. He matches
00:29the pedigree and the profile of each of the last now four first-round picks that Cincinnati has made
00:36going all the way back to Dax Hill in 2022. They say the draft is an exact science,
00:40but you can pretty easily predict who the Bengals are going to pick once they're on the clock looking
00:44at their options. And as soon as Walter Nolan went off the board to the Arizona Cardinals,
00:47a pick before the Bengals picked, Walter Nolan being the guy that we predicted would be the pick
00:51a month ago, it was going to be Stewart no matter what, unless they traded down. And just from that
00:55perspective, I am kind of glad that they didn't have to pick between Nolan and Stewart because I
01:00really don't know where they would have gone. Once Nolan went off the board, though, Stewart
01:03became the obvious pick for them in their eyes. We knew this pick had a really good chance of being
01:07a pass rusher, someone that could give them a lot of explosive juice up front. And the one thing
01:11we know for a fact about Shamar Stewart is that he is explosive. You don't run a 40-yard dash under
01:15four or six seconds and jump nearly 11 feet in the broad jump without having a lot of power in your
01:20lower half. And that is the upside with Shamar Stewart. He is huge, and he is fast, and he
01:25explodes off the ball. And that is a combination for someone who can be very dangerous in the NFL.
01:29But my word, man, this is a gigantic bet on not only Al Golden, but his entire staff on the
01:34defensive side of the ball. Because not only is Stewart extremely young, he is not even remotely
01:38close to being finished as a football player. For all of the speed, explosion, and power that is
01:43clearly evident in his game, and I'm sure while the Bengals on film, there is a lot of work to be done
01:48with his hands, with his football awareness, stringing together pass rushing moves. There
01:52is so much work that he needs to do in order to be usable on Sundays. And for a team that needs
01:57pass rushing help right now, I do question how impactful Shamar Stewart is going to be as a
02:02rookie in 2025. And the questions do not stop there. Stewart is yet another defensive lineman the
02:07Bengals have drafted with a premium pick that had a lot of production questions that make you wonder
02:11how high is this ceiling actually in the NFL? Because believe it or not, the very best pass rushers in
02:16the NFL, they all produced a lot more than Shamar Stewart did in college. And I don't mean to be
02:20a box score scout here, but that's just the truth. And those outliers, they do exist. Daniil Hunter,
02:25Jason Pierre, Paul immediately come to mind as athletic freaks who didn't really do that much in
02:29college, who entered the NFL at a young age, and then when their careers progressed, they got really
02:33useful. And that is a path forward for Stewart, but the Bengals specifically have not been able to
02:38find the key to unlock these kinds of pass rushers. And it just makes you ask the question,
02:42why is this time going to be any different? Because four and a half sacks and 11 tackles for loss
02:46and three years of playing time at a major program, it does raise a lot of flags. And it's not just
02:50because of the scheme that he was in or the fact that he was double teamed a lot. He himself left
02:53a lot of production on the field. And if he didn't, he probably would have been drafted a little bit
02:56earlier than when he was. So Stewart is going to have to be this outlier if he's going to be anything
03:00more than just a decent player in a rotation for the Bengals. And if that's who he is, that's fine.
03:04You know, that's a role that you can have for several years and last in the NFL. But for the Bengals to
03:08look back on this pick and say this was a resounding success, Shamar Stewart is going to have to be an
03:13exception to the rule. And that means that there's going to be a lot of pressure on Al Golden and his
03:16defensive staff to get that to happen. But I want to hear what you guys think. Is Shamar Stewart worth
03:20the risk with the 17th overall pick? And how do you think the rest of the draft is going to go for
03:24the Bengals? Let me know in the comments below.