Bengals Beat: With Help of Shemar Stewart, Bengals Find Their Nasty Side, Desperate Offensive Line Finds Its ‘Fire’

CINCINNATI — When Shemar Stewart executed a stunt rush with Kris Jenkins Jr. Wednesday, he lost his balance somewhat and was headed for Joe Burrow. He collided with the franchise quarterback and the offensive line took major exception with it, led by its two most senior members.

Center Ted Karras and right guard Lucas Patrick thought Stewart was being reckless in his effort to beat Patrick, the man in front of him when Jenkins went outside.

There’s two parts of what happened Wednesday. First, the offensive line was getting its tail whooped bad and the move by Stewart was indicative of that. Technically, that has to be fixed to protect the franchise. Stewart flew by Patrick, who attempted to get hands on him but was late, pushing him from behind. Second, the attitude of the defensive line whooping rose to the point where it was starting to get dangerous for Burrow and the offensive line wanted to remind the rookie of who was on the other side of his fierce pursuit.

On the very next play, Patrick reminded Stewart in no uncertain terms that you can’t be going after the quarterback like that in practice and risking it all for the entire team because you want to make a statement as a rookie. Patrick gave a hard shot to Stewart and Stewart took exception and a classic training camp scuffle ensued. Certainly, nothing out of the norm on a hot 85-degree day on Day 14 of an NFL camp.

“Gotta protect No. 9,” Patrick said.

“I think we got a little loose, from an O-Line perspective, and I think just some things transpired that warranted a response, and Lucas delivered that, I thought we handled it well overall, wasn’t like a shut down the practice type of scuffle, and probably about time we had one,” Karras said. “I think, honestly, the guys handled it well. I thought we let out some aggression. There were things that needed a response, that warranted a response. It was respond to. There was a couple scuffles, at least we got some work in. It wasn’t like a total shutdown of the day.”

Stewart’s only response in the locker room was to go over to Joe Burrow and let him know his regret for bumping into him and letting him know he’ll try to avoid it in the future.

Karras said “not many” when asked if he could remember times in the past where a quarterback was hit like Burrow was hit Wednesday. But overall, Karras likes the nastiness of Stewart in practice.

“Hell yeah. Just be smarter,” said Karras, who shifting to his left as Stewart shot the gap between center and right guard Patrick. “It’s a great rush. I’ll have to see it. I was on the other side of the line of scrimmage, but great player. But come on, man, that’s all our hopes and dreams right there. And we got to be better too. That’s on us.

“I think one thing about this team, Zac said this in the spring, that he wants us to be the as the closest team in the NFL, I think we’ve really taken that, I think more so than any team I’ve been here on the past. There’s a lot of across-the-ball relationships, and I think we have a lot of really good pros, and we put out really efficient, good practices. But (Wednesday), the D kicked our ass, and we had to respond a little bit, and we had some fire. It was, in a way, that we were still executing plays, but there were some scuffles at the end. And I’m not surprised it took 14 (practices). I don’t think that’s like an indictment on everyone’s passion. I think it’s more of,

In the end Karras believes the offensive line will be better for what happened Wednesday.

“I mean, everyone came out healthy, which is always the goal, when you go into something like that,” Karras said. “And I thought Lucas did the right thing. I thought the offense had to respond somehow. So would have been nice to get another touchdown after that, but we’re gonna go take our licks here in the meeting room.”

Stewart declined to talk Wednesday but his D-line teammate T.J. Slaton did offer some perspective.

“Oh my God, y’all (in the media) want to talk (about the play),” Slaton said with a laugh. “You know we can’t talk about them like that out there. I don’t know what happened. I was blind to it. Couldn’t see it. It’s just teammates. It was just a lot of love out there. It was a lot of love out there, man. Everybody just wanted extra hugs and stuff. You know, that’s all it was.

“It’s getting hot, man. Just want to let y’all know that it’s getting it’s hot out there. I don’t know why it’s so hot up here, but it’s hot out there. His energy, most definitely, his aggression, his attitude, that’s all on him and how he approached the game. And as you can see out there, he has real love for the game, so long as it’s controlled aggression, hey, we’ll use it all day.”

Slaton’s been around long enough to know there’s a definite distinction between aggression and being reckless and angry on the practice field.

“I’d be one of those people that be trying to play angry, but sometimes it narrows your sight a little bit,” Slaton told me. “So it’s always good to be like, calm or like in the flow so you can be able to see everything on the field of what’s going on. Playing angry has its good side and it has downsides, too.”

Bengals Camp Day 14:
* Shemar Stewart and Lucas Patrick scuffle after Stewart bumps Joe Burrow and Burrow stumbles to ground.
* After the play on Burrow in which Stewart stunted around Kris Jenkins and stumbled into Burrow, beating Patrick, Patrick and Stewart got into it. “Lucas did the right thing.” Ted Karras
* “They kicked our ass…” Karras on the Bengals defensive front throughout practice.
* Members of the Reds attended practice, including Nick Martinez, Matt McLain and Emilio Pagan. They were chatted up by Zac Taylor at the start.
* T.J. Slaton continues to be a disrupter in the middle of the defensive, batting down a Joe Burrow pass over the middle Wednesday. He blamed his wrist guard brace for not being able to hang onto the ball for the interception, noting that in years past he picked off Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love in practice.
* Orlando Brown Jr., Myles Murphy, Cedric Johnson, Jermaine Burton did not practice.
* Bengals defense dominated Burrow and the offense, not allowing a single first down in the final 11-on-11 period. The starting offense committed three pre-snap penalties including two delay of games.
* Bengals only 11-on-11 TD was a slant-in to Tee Higgins of 12 yards in red zone.
* Cody Ford started for Orlando Brown Jr. at left tackle
* Cordell Volson took snaps at center on second team.
* Desmond Ridder took second team reps at QB.
* Team off Thursday. Back practicing on Friday and Saturday.