Shemar Stewart a Safe Pick for Cincinnati Bengals According to Chris Simms

CINCINNATI – In the traits vs. production argument that has defined the first-round selection of Shemar Stewart, there has been an assumption that Cincinnati Bengals were overly influenced by the Texas A&M’s eye-popping workout at the Combine.

But Bengals director of college scouting Mike Potts said that was not the case.

Yes, the organization’s scouts and coaches – along with everyone else across the league – were wowed by what they saw from Stewart in Indianapolis.

His 131-inch broad jump was first of 44 defensive linemen who participated; his 40-inch vertical was second of 49; and his 4.59 40-yard dash was fourth of 37.

But that performance didn’t override all of the advance work the Bengals had done on Stewart.

It just confirmed it.

 “Honestly, his combine performance did not affect the evaluation a ton because we already saw that on tape, and then we talked to our sources at the school,” Potts said Tuesday night on The Growler podcast.

“We already knew he was going to test like that,” he added. “It would have been a surprise if the testing numbers were a notch less than that in all those areas.”

Stewart was a player who popped last offseason when Potts and the rest of the scouts were watching hours of film on defensive line prospects, including Stewart’s former Texas A&M teammate McKinnley Jackson, whom they drafted in the third round.

And while Stewart only had 1.5 sacks in 2023 and 1.5 in 2024, Potts and the rest of the Cincinnati organization were quick to point out that the teams rarely went into traditional drops against the Aggies because of how explosive their defensive line was.

“You see that explosiveness, that violence, that speed on tape,” Potts said of Stewart. “We already knew we were dealing with a freakish, top-percentile athlete in this draft.

“It was more about the conversations with the production, talking that through with our coaching staff and their vision and their plan for the player to develop them, work with them and get the best out of them,” Potts said. “So the Combine was something that we kind of expected going into it.”

On the fan criticism of the pick, Potts said it’s hard not to hear it.

“I'm sure there's people that love the pick, and I'm sure there are people that hate the pick,” Potts said. “At the end of the day, we have to see how he ends up playing. You would have loved for him to check every single box. That's not the case, but I do think he checks more boxes than he doesn't check.

“Obviously, it's a fan driven business,” he continued. “You want the fans to be fired up about every single pick. But at the same time, that's the great thing about the draft and sports in general. It's driven by the fans and their opinions. And everybody's going to have different opinions, whether it's on a player in the middle of a game, a draft pick, a trade, whatever it is. I think that's what makes sports great.”

The Bengals met with Stewart at the Combine and came away as impressed with his personality and character as they were with his film.

That meeting is a big reason why the team didn’t bring him in for a Top 30 visit.

“We had a lot of exposure to him throughout the season,” Potts said. “We did bring him in at the Combine for a formal interview, got some really good face to face time with him there. We were at his pro day as well. He's a guy who checks the character boxes.

“There are guys that maybe you have a question on or need a little bit more homework done on them, or maybe there's a conflict in terms of the coach or one of the scouts being able to be at the pro day, so you want to get that face to face interaction with the guy,” Potts continued. “And we got a ton of time around him at the Senior Bowl as well. So we felt pretty good about the evaluation of him as a player and a person.”


This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/bengals/ as What Effect Did Shemar Stewart’s Combine Workout Have on Bengals, and Why Didn’t They Use a Top-30 Visit on Him?.