Shemar Stewart won’t dress for Sunday’s game against the Ravens, even though he’s healthy.
That’s the headline, and it lands a little harder when you stack it against where Stewart was drafted. Cincinnati took the 22-year-old defensive end in the first round, 17th overall, in the 2025 NFL Draft. Through three games this season, he has one sack and has logged only 17 snaps on defense.
The Bengals’ decision, though, is being framed as a pure roster call rather than anything bigger. Stewart missed all of training camp with a knee injury, and that opened the door for Cedric Johnson to carve out a role as Cincinnati’s fourth defensive end behind Boye Mafe, Myles Murphy and rookie Cashius Howell. All three of those players are available Sunday, and the Bengals entered the game with a clean injury report.
Johnson wasn’t going to be the odd man out. He has eight tackles, two sacks and two quarterback hits in five games, and the team also wasn’t going to make Kris Jenkins Jr. inactive. That left Stewart as the healthy scratch in a numbers game.
The Bengals have been encouraged by what they’ve seen from Stewart in practice over the past few weeks, and sources insist the move has nothing to do with the Nov. 10 trade deadline. Still, the optics are tough to ignore: Cincinnati used the 17th pick on Stewart 18 months ago, and he still can’t crack the defensive line rotation.
One source said they believe Stewart will help the defense this season. Another pointed out how much the missed training camp cost him, with Stewart now trying to make up ground.
Sunday’s decision also says something about the development of Johnson and Jenkins, who have grown into the kind of contributors Cincinnati hoped they would be. The Bengals are carrying nine active defensive linemen for the game: Dexter Lawrence, Jonathan Allen, Kris Jenkins, TJ Slaton, BJ Hill, Myles Murphy, Boye Mafe, Cashius Howell and Cedric Johnson.
The comparison that comes to mind is Tyler Boyd being a healthy inactive in year two. Boyd handled it the right way. Now the question is how Stewart responds.
He has the talent, and the Bengals need him to turn that into real production this season. What he does next will shape the story around him in Cincinnati.
There’s also a change elsewhere on the roster. Veteran safety Kyle Dugger is back and will play after missing a few games with a quad injury, which makes Russ Yeast inactive. Rookie center Connor Lew, defensive tackle Landon Robinson and offensive tackle Myles Hinton are also inactive.
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