Shemar Stewart, EDGE, Texas A&M

The Cincinnati Bengals are an enigma of a franchise. They have a top 5 QB in football, the most prolific pass rusher in the league last season, and a top 3 WR tandem which includes a top 3 individual WR in the league (and I’m being very conservative with all those rankings). A team with that amount of high end talent in a division with the perpetually terrible Browns and consistently mediocre Steelers should not be struggling to make the playoffs.

Yet they did, missing out on the playoffs entirely and wasting Joe Burrow’s best year of his career so far. The reason: mainly defense. They were 25th in Points Allowed, 25th in Opposing YPG, 30th in red zone TD% allowed, and were somehow 26th in Sack% despite having Trey Hendrickson. The defense was easily the biggest problem with the team, and DC Lou Anarumo lost his job as a result.

The Bengals did not do much to help fix the defense in free agency either. They brought back DE Joseph Ossai, DL Cam Sample, and CB Marco Wilson while signing DTs BJ Hill and TJ Slaton. They also replaced LB Akeem Davis-Gaither with Super Bowl champion Oren Burks. While these moves may be decent, they won’t do nearly enough to move the needle and make the Bengals legitimate competitors. Oh, and Trey Hendrickson has had enough and wants out.

Enter Shemar Stewart from Texas A&M. He measured in at 6’5” 267 lbs at the Combine, which is noticeably lower than the 290 lbs he was listed at on A&M’s website. If you designed an EDGE rusher in a lab, this guy would be it. He ran a 4.59s 40 yard dash, 131” broad jump, 40” vertical, and sports a nearly 85” wingspan. Those numbers compare very closely to Myles Garrett coming out of college.

Those numbers absolutely translate to the field too. He is extremely quick, has elite bend, and has power to boot. Nobody who is that big should be able to move as well as he does. He does an excellent job of getting off on a great first step, and if you can’t get hands on him immediately it is almost a guarantee he is blowing up the play in some way, shape or form. He can change direction as easily as a running back while also being able to push linemen back effortlessly. Stewart sets a violent edge with strong hands, he already has a higher than average football IQ, and in the open field you would be hard pressed to find a DL with a hotter motor or better pursuit.

I mentioned Myles Garrett a bit earlier, and I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that is Stewart’s ceiling. So why is he falling this late in the 1st? Rawness and production. He has only gotten 4.5 sacks in 3 seasons. This is despite him getting 39 QB pressures in 2024, suggesting he has trouble finishing plays. His technique is also very rudimentary and he plays with questionable balance that is down to his form. He doesn’t have a lot of pass rushing moves, more depending on pure athleticism. Linemen can catch onto this, reducing his effectiveness later in games. Stewart is far from a finished product, which makes him an incredibly risky prospect.

I don’t care, though. You can teach pass rushing moves, technique, or hand placement. You cannot teach these traits. I think his playing style already sets himself up to impact the running game immediately, but it will be down to the right team to develop his pass rush. If you are able to get him to improve there or even just teach him to finish more consistently he has among the highest ceilings in an EDGE I’ve ever seen. He’s high risk/high reward, but I think he’s got a better chance than not of putting it all together. The athleticism is too tantalizing. It would be one thing if he is this physical freak that just doesn’t know how to utilize his gifts. Stewart is constantly blowing up plays left and right, he just hasn’t been able to put everything together just yet in one game wrecking final package. He’s still getting to the QB, blowing up gaps and affecting the game consistently. This is why I think production and raw stats are slightly overrated: they don’t tell the whole story, and for Stewart this is especially so. I don’t think it will take much for him to put it together.

The Trey Hendrickson saga is going to hover over Cincy’s heads for a while, but I would have chosen Stewart even if he was perfectly happy and guaranteed to stay. I couldn’t have gone wrong choosing almost any defensive position or even OG when it came to team needs, but the fact that I get to fill a major one with in my mind the best player available makes this an absolutely no brainer to me. I was extremely high on Nolan Smith 2 years ago, and I think I’m higher on Stewart this year. If the Bengals are able to get Stewart and develop him properly, they have a blue chip piece of which to build a true competitor in the AFC for years to come.