Who’s surprised? No one.
To the surprise of absolutely no one on Earth, Cincinnati Bengals defensive end and defending NFL sack leader Trey Hendrickson will not attend mandatory minicamp, which begins on Tuesday, per Adam Schefter and Dianna Russini.
This is the next chapter of an ongoing saga between Hendrickson and the front office, and now, according to Paul Dehner Jr., the defensive end will be fined $104,768. If his very public statements and missing OTAs didn’t make his stance on whether he’ll play on his current contract or not clear, maybe this will.
Hendrickson is under contract for the 2025 season with a cap hit of $18.3 million and a base salary of $15.8 million. He has accrued 17.5 sacks over each of the last two seasons, leading the NFL in the statistic in 2024. However, in 2025, he’s tied with BJ Hill and Alim McNeil at No. 29 when it comes to total cash, per Spotrac, while defensive ends Hendrickson has outperformed are making $10-$15 million more.
The Bengals’ stance, surely, is that he signed a contract (which he did) and they believe he should stand by it. They also have historically shied away from giving big guarantees to anyone over 30, which Hendrickson is.
Who knows how this will end? All I know is it’s probably going to get uglier before it’s over.