With the Bengals and first-round defensive end Shemar Stewart dug in over a misguided effort by the team to change an obscure potion of the team’s boilerplate contract language without offering a corresponding concession, Stewart doesn’t have many options.
The nuclear option would be for Stewart to sit out the entire season and re-enter the draft. While the NIL era will reduce the urgency of many incoming NFL players to get paid, it’s a lot of money to give up. Among other things, Stewart is missing out on a slotted signing bonus in excess of $10 million.
And it’s unlikely that he’d be taken in the same spot — 17th overall — if he doesn’t play in 2025. For starters, he’d be competing with a fresh crop of players who will have played in the upcoming football season. Then there’s the question Michael Holley raised on Friday’s PFT Live: Would teams shy away from Stewart because he dared to buck the system?
On one hand, some teams may relish the ability to stick it to the Bengals, who have a well-earned reputation for putting business issues ahead of football concerns. On the other hand, thou shalt not rebel against the sorting-hat “honor and privilege” known as the NFL draft.
Regardless, it won’t be easy for Stewart to walk away from his $10 million signing bonus and total four-year deal in the range of $19 million. Especially since that number would likely be much smaller a year from now. And since he would have to give up playing football for a full year, all in the name of proving a point.
Whether that means Stewart eventually will blink and agree to the team’s new default language remains to be seen. If he’s going to do it, he needs to get any and all gripes about the team out of his system before he puts pen to paper.
After he signs, he’ll risk his future guarantees if he dares to “make any public comment . . . that breaches Player’s obligation of loyalty to Club and/or undermines the public’s respect for the Club, Club coaches, or Club management.”
So air your grievances now, Shemar. Once you’re under contract, the Bengals will be squatting on your First Amendment rights.
During the offseason program, the players who don’t show up get most of the attention. The players who fully participate get overlooked.
For the Patriots, where newcomers like receiver Stefon Diggs and cornerback Carlton Davis generated headlines for not showing up for voluntary workouts, newly-signed defensive tackle Milton Williams did.
Via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com, the former Eagles defender was a full participant in the offseason program. Reiss adds this observation: “And he seemed to embrace Vrabel’s approach of being hardest on the team’s best players.”
While Vrabel and all coaches are prevented by the Collective Bargaining Agreement from saying or doing anything to suggest that the voluntary workouts aren’t voluntary, this specific aspect of Vrabel’s plan for coaching his team demonstrates how he feels about players choosing — and not choosing — to be there.
Given that Vrabel likes to be hardest on the team’s best players, it’ll be interesting to see if players like Diggs and Davis have bought themselves an even more memorable experience in late July and August.
Michael Holley has spoken.
The once-per-week PFT Live co-host has read Father of Mine. And he likes it. He shared a surprise review of the book during Friday’s PFT Live season finale. (The video is attached to this blurb.)
You can get the ebook for a mere 99 cents on Amazon. It’s an incredible bargain. A stupidly low price. It’s the continuation of a misguided New Year’s resolution to make the Father of Mine and Son of Mine ebooks available for less than a dollar for all of 2025.
I don’t care about the money, obviously. The goal is to give you something to fill the space between football games. And with fewer than three months to go until the next football season starts, you can pass the time by diving into both books.
And since it’s Father’s Day weekend, I’ll be giving away three signed copies of the print edition. Send an email to florio@profootballtalk.com with this subject line: “Father’s Day weekend 2025 giveaway.” I’ll get them signed and stuffed and sent later this week.
Send the email. Download the ebooks. Take it from Michael Holley.
Steelers running back Jaylen Warren needs to be ready for a lot of carries this season.
Last year’s leading rusher, Najee Harris, left in free agency. Warren was the Steelers’ No. 2 back in 2024, with 120 carries for 511 yards and one touchdown, and this year Pittsburgh plans to let him carry the load. When asked if Warren can handle more touches, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin answered, “Certainly.”
Warren said his whole offseason has been about getting ready for a big workload.
“I approached this offseason differently,” Warren said, via Steelers.com. “I did a lot more things for longevity wise, instead of my old-school training like just getting the cleats on and running 30 hills. I had to adapt. This game is about longevity. And like they say, the best ability is availability.”
Last season, the Steelers ran the ball 533 times in 17 games, and Harris had 263 of them, or just under half. Quarterbacks Justin Fields and Russell Wilson combined for 105, and they’ve been replaced by Aaron Rodgers, who doesn’t run as often. Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said when you lose half your carries, a running back needs to step up.
“Generally you’ve got 500-plus carries in a regular season,” Smith said. “You’re talking about 1,100 snaps. You would like to be on the plus side of 500. That means you’re in more four-minute. Let’s leave it at 500 carries to divvy up. That’s kind of where you’re at. Then obviously losing Naj, Naj for four years here, he was very durable, and that’s a lot of missing carries.”
Warren said he has “no doubt” that he can pick up the slack.
The UFL has a new champion.
The D.C. Defenders defeated the Michigan Panthers in St. Louis on Saturday night, 58-34. It was the most points scored by any team in two seasons of UFL action.
The game was back and forth at first, with the Panthers leading 6-0 and 13-6 in the first half. By intermission, D.C. built a 37-19 lead.
A touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter extended D.C.'s lead to 52-19.
Defenders quarterback Jordan Ta’amu completed 21 of 28 passes for 390 yards and four touchdowns. He added 28 rushing yards and another touchdown.
Via Mike Mitchell, 14,559 attended the game. While a solid number by UFL standards, it’s a steep drop from the attendance in St. Louis for the 2024 UFL title game between Birmingham and San Antonio of 27,396.
Missouri has done its part to keep the Chiefs (and Royals) on the right side of the border with Kansas. Now, it all comes down to whether one or both teams will choose to stay put.
Via the Associated Press, governor Mike Kehoe signed on Saturday the bill that will provide hundreds of millions in state money toward a $1.15 billion renovation of Arrowhead Stadium and a new venue for the Royals.
Kansas has made the Chiefs and Royals an offer on a new stadium, which would have a dome — and which would be much more expensive. The deadline for accepting is, supposedly, June 30.
The ball is now in the both teams’ court. For the Chiefs, it’s a simple proposition: Stay in a renovated iconic venue at Arrowhead Stadium, or build a facility that could potentially host a Super Bowl.
Minnesota has been rocked by the assassination of House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home, along with the attempted assassination of Senator John Hoffman and his wife.
The Vikings have issued a statement condemning the senseless act of political violence.
“As Minnesotans and a team that cares deeply about our state, we are shocked and saddened by the targeted overnight attacks that took the lives of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and seriously injured State Senator Jon Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.
“Our organization has worked closely with both legislators and appreciated their duties as civil servants. Speaker Emerita Hortman was a friend of the Vikings for more than 15 years and a tremendous state leader who worked tirelessly to make Minnesota a better place for all residents. She was a mother, a wife and a friend who genuinely cared about people and relationships. Our prayers are with the Hortman family as they grieve this tragedy and with all government officials who are mourning the loss of a colleague and friend. We hope for fast and full recoveries for Senator Hoffman and Yvette and safety for all members of law enforcement who continue to search for those responsible.
“These senseless acts should have no place in our communities, our state or our society. We must all unequivocally condemn political violence, reject hateful division, and deliberately work toward mutual respect, compassion and unity.”
The suspected shooter remains at large.
This year, Aaron Rodgers will become the latest successor to Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh. And Roethlisberger believes it will be a one-year arrangement.
“I don’t think he’s got much more after this year,” Roethlisberger said on his Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger podcast, via Andrew Vasquez of USA Today. “I think this might be it for him — personally. I have no reason — you could ask, ‘Well, how do you know?’ I don’t know. I’m just guessing in terms of you coming off an Achilles [tear]. Coming off my elbow [injury], my first year back I felt like I was 100. I wasn’t even — you don’t realize you’re not 100 until the next year when you are 100.”
Rodgers started all 17 games in 2024, a year after suffering a torn Achilles tendon on the fourth play of the first game of the season.
“He’s going to feel better, but it doesn’t mean that he’s going to have two or three years left,” Roethlisberger said. “I think this might be his last go.”
Roethlisberger is hardly going out on a limb. Not many quarterbacks have played deep into their 40s. Rodgers turns 42 in December. (Roethlisberger retired at 39.)
While he hasn’t said it, Rodgers’s main objective seems to be authoring a final chapter that has a better ending than his two-year detour to New York. For him, making the playoffs would do the trick.
For the Steelers, winning a playoff game seems to be the bare minimum to make the experiment a success. That’s something the team didn’t do in any of Roethlisberger’s five final seasons in football — or in the three since he retired.
The deal between the Commanders and D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser was the beginning, not the end. And the agreement to build a new Commanders stadium in D.C. potentially could evaporate.
As explained earlier this week by Eric Fisher of FrontOfficeSports.com, the arrangement requires preliminary approval from D.C. Council by July 15. At that point, the team can talk to other jurisdictions about building a stadium there.
That would open the door for Maryland and Virginia to negotiate with the team.
“A delay sacrifices our exclusive seat at the table and $2.7 [b]illion in private investment,” Bowser said, via Fisher. “The Commanders and my team are ready to iron out the details with the Council and respond to any concerns. It should be clear, but let me emphasize: If the Council strips the deal terms or budgeted dollars from the budget, it kills our agreement with the Commanders.”
The Commanders hope to open the stadium by 2030.
And, based on comments from Bowser shared by Scott Gelman of WTOP.com, the Commanders aren’t happy with the situation.
Bowser, per Gelman, said the team is “outraged” by the situation. She also said, “I think they feel blindsided by the discussion” and that “it’s not even close to characterize their reaction as ‘furious.’”
The team’s official position wasn’t nearly as blunt, but the message is unmistakable.
“We are prepared to work with the Council morning and night over the next six weeks to keep this stadium on schedule so we can deliver for D.C.’s future,” a spokesperson told Gelman.
In other words. The clock is ticking. We have six weeks. Let’s get it done.
If that doesn’t happen, what happens next could get interesting.
Bill Belichick’s North Carolina consigliere has kept a very low profile in the weeks since a disastrous CBS book-tour interview made Jordon Hudson and Belichick one of the biggest stories in sports.
On Saturday morning, UNC G.M. Michael Lombardi appeared on ESPN Radio’s Marty & McGee. And Lombardi was asked about the slew of reports regarding Belichick and Hudson.
“I mean, a lot of it is just noise,” Lombardi said. “And for us to be distracted by something that has no bearing, that has no relevance whatsoever, that is a complete falsehood, in terms of what people are saying or what they’re writing. It’s comical. And for me, to really even attack anybody who’s saying it, gives them credibility. Which I don’t, because it’s a completely false narrative.”
It sounds as if new North Carolina P.R. expert Brandon Faber has been working with Lombardi, because Lombardi is otherwise wired to attack, attack, and attack some more. The new strategy is to ignore the noise so as not to legitimize it.
That still didn’t stop Lombardi from selectively attacking certain reports.
“I mean, look, let’s face it,” he said. “One report had [Belichick] wasn’t supposed to be here [at] the beginning of June. And the next report came out that he was gonna go back to the NFL. I mean, it’s all just a bunch of stuff being thrown up against the wall. My job is to focus on North Carolina football, and Bill’s job is to focus on North Carolina football, and that’s what he has done, and that’s what I’ve done. And we’re gonna continue to do that. And the noise out there comes from a direction of people trying to be disruptive within our program. We’re not going to allow it. We’re not going to acknowledge it. We’re gonna move on. And look, let’s face it, the proof’s in the pudding. We’re having a tremendous recruiting class. We had a tremendous portal, and we’re going to continue to get better every day.”
The reporting has been so much more extensive than the potential implications of the dramatic reduction in Belichick’s buyout from, as of June 1, $10 million to $1 million. And no one has reported he’s going to go back to the NFL, because he’s been shut out from two complete hiring cycles. (If the Bucs or maybe even the Dolphins come calling after the 2025 season, no amount of tar on the heels would keep Belichick in Chapel Hill.)
Lombardi was also asked about the internal reaction to the CBS interview, which sparked a firestorm via Hudson’s instruction that Belichick not answer the hard-hitting question of how they met. Did they circle the wagons?
“We had no reason to circle wagons,” Lombardi said. “Everybody looked at each other and was like in complete amazement. I mean, so, we didn’t have any reason to circle the wagons. The reason we had was to focus on what we’re going to do, as Bill said in a lot of the interviews — and I don’t want to speak for Coach Belichick — but he said, ‘Look, Jordon does stuff in his business outside of North Carolina football, not here.’ I mean, it’s just completely a story that was generated from — basically, made up. I mean, it’s a tremendous, you know, you could be a great novelist, some of the people that report this stuff. So we had no, there’s no reason to circle any wagons. Look, when we play Clemson, we’re gonna have to circle the wagons. But we play TCU on the opening game, we’re going to have to circle the wagons. Those are competition. This is just noise.”
His “this is just noise” talking point is factually incorrect. The publicly-disclosed emails show that she was involved in North Carolina football. Credible reporting explained that she derailed a Hard Knocks infomercial that would have been very valuable to the program.
But this is the new playbook, for anyone who doesn’t like anything the media reports about them. Attack the messenger. Deny the merits. Never admit. Never surrender.
Deny, deny, deny. Attack, attack, attack. Facts are irrelevant. Truth is irrelevant. It’s all about image and spin and whatever BS can be spewed with a straight face.
Lombardi was back to spewing some of it on Saturday. We’ll see if it was an isolated appearance, or whether he’s getting ready to resume his regular smartest-guy-in-football media appearances, where he can repeatedly drop the names of legendary football figures who personally despised him.
