Bengals owner won't pay player to sit in jail

Well, the Cincinnati Bengals are in the news again. I just told you about how their QB Joe Burrows had his home burglarized for $300,000 and now the owner of the team is in the news. Mike Brown the team's owner, doesn't typically do interviews, it's usually once a year but he made it count this year with a blunt statement about a rookie's contract negotiations.

Shemar Stewart is a defensive end which is a great addition for the team. We all know Joe Burrow needs all the protection he can get. Stewart is a first-round draft pick so the dispute with the owner has nothing to do with his on-field ability, the Bengals are worried about what he's going to do after office hours. Stewart was offered a four-year, $19 million contract.

The problem is in the wording of the contract you see Stewart wants his money fully guaranteed meaning as soon as he signs the contract he's entitled to the full $19 million. The Bengals want to leave the contract how it is, meaning the team can void some of the guarantees if Stewart violates any NFL policies or if he breaks the law.

Brown said, "His agent wants it to be so that if he acted in a terrible fashion--this is all hypothetical--something that rises to the level of going to prison, that we would be on the line for the guarantees for the future years that haven't been paid. And our position is no, if that happens we're not going to be...we're not going to be paying someone who's sitting in jail. That's not what we're going to do."

Stewart and his agent haven't issued a response at the time of this report. Just when you thought an NFL owner couldn't be any more blunt than Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the Bengals owner says hold my beer.

This is incredible, you have a team owner going on the record basically saying he has no faith his first round draft pick can stay out of trouble with the league or worse stay out of jail. In fact it sounds like Mike Brown's money is on Stewart violating some rules or possibly going to jail. It's not a matter of if but when right Mike...allegedly!

I thought team owners were smart, like highly educated trust fund babies errr I mean Harvard sophisticates. The owner's statement is certainly idiotic I mean even if that's how you truly feel, there's no benefit in sharing that with the media. The Bengals would've had a typical news day had they gone with the usual lie...you know, we can't guarantee your contract because you might get hurt. Nope, the owner decided to go nuclear with the he might go to jail blast.

I'm basically going to sit back with some popcorn and watch how the Bengals PR team tries to get out of this one. This can be misconstrued so many different ways, all of them negative. Now I know why Brown only does one interview a year, it's usually a mic drop moment...see you next year Mike.