The offseason is a stressful time for most in the NFL. For fans of the Cincinnati Bengals, there is a general feeling that the front office is back to its old ways and will squander its elite talent. After the 2022 season, the team failed to re-sign Jessie Bates in the hopes that it would use those funds to pay someone like Tee Higgins. Fast forward to February 2025 and there is no guarantee Higgins will be back. Higgins isn’t the only big-name star fighting to be compensated for his efforts, either. Ja’Marr Chase is coming off a Triple Crown season and will be the highest-paid receiver in the NFL. On defense, however, there is a predicament.
Trey Hendrickson has put the ball in the Bengals’ court.
The Cincinnati Bengals Have Been Given an Ultimatum by Its Defensive Star
Hendrickson wants a Super Bowl for Cincinnati. Whether or not he is actually part of the process matters not to him. On Wednesday, February 5, the star appeared on ESPN‘s “Pat McAfee Show” and put it all on the table,
“If it’s something we can agree on in terms, that would be great. Ideally, my wife and I would love to stay in Cincinnati,” Hendrickson told the show. “If it’s something that helps the Bengals win the Super Bowl, if they get picks or anything like that, I want to help win a Super Bowl for Cincinnati, whether I’m there or not.”
It’s not every day that a superstar says something along the lines of, “If trading me gets you a ring, I’m all for it.” Reading between the lines, it’s apparent that Hendrickson has given the Bengals the “pay me or trade me” ultimatum.
This ultimatum is not foreign to this team, of course. Numerous stars have thrown down the gauntlet, and the Bengals tend not to blink. Defacto General Manager (since the team technically doesn’t have a GM) Duke Tobin has said, “We are not in the business of making other teams better.”
Breaking the Mold
The Bengals are known for doing two things: drafting uber-athletic players while overlooking personality red flags and refusing to sign players on the wrong side of 30. Hendrickson turned 30 in December and is under contract for this upcoming season after signing a one-year extension prior to the 2023 season. That extension tacked one year onto his existing four-year contract and will be making $15.8 million this year, none of which is guaranteed.
In order for the Bengals to extend Hendrickson again for two or three more years, they’ll have to break their own mold of avoiding 30-plus-year-old players.
Can the team extend Hendrickson? Yes. Can the team extend Hendrickson, Chase, and re-sign Higgins? Yes.
Joe Goodberry shows how the team can do so while extending Hendrickson two more years through 2027. A two-year, $55-million extension which is effectively a three-year, $74 million deal. It would give him a solid raise and lock him down for three more seasons, including 2025.
If the team had hit on more of its draft picks, this situation would not be nearly as dire. However, miss after miss, disappointment after disappointment in the draft has jacked up Hendrickson’s price and has given him all of the leverage.
A Trade? Really?
The sheer fact that Hendrickson said he would be fine with a trade as long as it helps out the Bengals shows that the team needs to get an extension taken care of. Even then, what could a Hendrickson trade yield?
All kinds of mock trades have flooded social media with some of the highest-end trades netting a couple of second-round picks for the team.
Hendrickson’s agent is set to meet with the Bengals soon, so there could be something in the works as early as this weekend. At the same time, if it is obvious that the team is going to lowball its star as it has in the past, it would only make the most sense to see what they could get in a trade.
Nobody wants to see Hendrickson finish his career anywhere else, especially not him and his family.
Same Old Bengals?
Unfortunately, knowing the history of this team, it’s more likely Hendrickson plays out the final year of his deal and the Bengals net a day three compensatory pick. All while alienating the rest of its roster, just like it did with Bates and the current Higgins saga.
As he does each year, Tobin talked at the Senior Bowl and mentioned the Hendrickson situation by name. Tobin conceded, “Has he earned a pay raise and a bump in an extension … he has,” Tobin said. “We’re cognizant of that, and we will give that to him.” However, he ends the quote, “We can’t have guys at the top of the payroll in every position, right?” Tobin said. “We’ll do what we can. We’ll do what we feel is right, and we will try to get Trey re-signed. It’s not giving anybody an extension. It’s agreeing with somebody on an extension.”
The issue is that the team did not communicate with Hendrickson. The All-Pro went on to say to McAfee, “I would have preferred to kind of heard it differently than my dad texting me a tweet,” Hendrickson said. “That would have been great to figure it out that way.”
While it could be taken that Tobin is just trying to keep his leverage in the negotiations, it also sounds like the team is going to remain steadfast in its myopic practice of refusing contracts to over-30 players.
Joe Burrow will be 30 at some point, will they continue this?
The team low-balled Andrew Whitworth and all he did was go and win a Super Bowl.
The team absolutely can take care of its own while prying that Super Bowl window back open. At the same time, the Bengals only have six draft picks this year. They’ll need to nail as many as possible.
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