Shemar Stewart's disaster rookie season with Bengals gets odd comment

The verdict very much remains out on Shemar Stewart for the Cincinnati Bengals.

A hotly-debated pick at the time when the Bengals made him a first-round pick one year ago, Stewart’s 4.5 sacks in college sparked a production vs. upside debate.

Things got rocky from the jump for Stewart’s rookie season, though, when he became embroiled in a contract standoff with the Bengals that ultimately didn’t result in much of a win for himself.

Stewart then battled multiple nagging injuries, playing in just eight games, 53 percent of the snaps in those appearances and registering a 41.2 Pro Football Focus grade, ranked dead last out of 115 edge defenders.

Fast forward to now on the Bengals Booth Podcast with Dan Hoard, defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery said Stewart simply wasn’t ready to be out there at times.

“Shemar missed six months of football,” Montgomery said. “He was injured. He missed most of the season. I would say there were times he wasn’t ready to be out there as a guy that just missed so much football.”

Granted, Montgomery went on to say he’s “excited about his future” while mentioning the hope that Stewart actually gets a full offseason of work under his belt.

To all involved’s credit, the Bengals were expecting Stewart to develop on the fly as a rookie and understood growing pains would happen. Then the contract standoff cost him valuable time before his debut.