Requiem for a Failson: Tuesday Open Thread

Whelp, Jim Irsay finally kicked it.

He wasn’t a great owner. He wasn’t a great businessman. From all appearances, he wasn’t even a very interesting drug-addicted failson- no trace of Hunter Thompson’s High Powered Mutant about him. He lived, inherited the family business, bought a bunch of guitars, then died.

It’s not the worst version of that narrative arc. Mark Davis is trending worse. Hell, Brick Johnson is already blazing more of a fiery terminal arc, and his testicles may not have descended yet.

Still, he was good for the occasional laugh and he seemed to genuinely want his team to succeed. RIP Jim.

-Segueing into failsons that don’t seem to want their teams to succeed, Mike Brown appears to have chewed through the restraints they had him in while they doled out giant contracts to Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

First, he and his cronies lied about negotiating in good faith (or at all) with defensive keystone, First Team All-Pro, and league sack leader Trey Hendrickson. That’s shitty, but no one expects better from the Bengals than doing a 30 year-old player dirty. No one was surprised when they drafted his likely replacement, Shemar Stewart, at #17 overall.

What does surprise many of us (though perhaps it shouldn’t) is what the Cincinnati front office is now trying to do to Stewart. As you may recall, draft pick salaries are now largely slotted, which eliminated both jealousy-inducing Sam Bradford rookie contracts and the majority of rookie training camp holdouts.

But as sure as the Sun rises and the Designated Hitter ruins baseball, give front offices and agents enough time and they will find something to fight over.

What exactly Shemar Stewart and the Bengals are fighting over is Highly Unclear. Various reports have him sitting on the sidelines due to the distribution of training camp bonuses (a way to very slightly front-load a rookie contract), language about a default in one year voiding subsequent years’ guarantees, or what precisely voids the guarantees.

As to the latter two: “fully” guaranteed NFL contracts have a number of ways in which they are not actually guaranteed. Most (if not all) have clauses voiding guarantees if the player is convicted of a crime, is suspended by the league for certain things (or number of games) etc.

The third report (seemingly the most credible, given Bengals involvement) is that in addition to criminal or league discipline, the Bengals want the ability to void the guarantees if the team decides Stewart has done anything detrimental to the team.

Language tied to league discipline is bad enough, given the arbritrary and capricious nature of the Ginger Hammer. But at least that has an external determinant that can’t (directly) be manipulated by one party to its own advantage.

What would be “detrimental”? Presumably only the Bengals know. Being a shithead in the locker room? Hurting Zac Taylor’s feelings? Perhaps playing below expectations is detrimental. Maybe wanting an extension before Year 6 is detrimental, or just costing more than Mike Brown wants to spend.

When one party has unilateral control and discretion over whether the guarantees are honore, they are no longer guarantees. Fuck that noise.

By all accounts (including public statements), all Stewart is asking is for the same contractual terms as the Bengals gave Armarius Mims, last year’s first rounder. Regardless of which of the many scenarios floating around is reality, that seems deeply reasonable. Maybe that’s why the Bengals are reflexively opposed.

Listen: with apologies to Redshirt and the rest of our Bengals coningent, I enjoy watching Cincy sabotage itself. Having constants in this time of chaos is comforting. But it’s time for the Bengals to stop inserting pinecones up their own asses. There are no extra points for degree of difficulty.

-Joey Bosa is already injured and out until at least training camp. Fucker.