DE Trey Hendrickson had an NFL-high 35 sacks between the 2023 and ’24 seasons.
Cincinnati fell to 3-6 after another awful home loss Sunday to Chicago.
The Bengals defense has been terrible in recent years despite Hendrickson’s exploits.
The Cincinnati Bengals have shown progress in recent years, insomuch as they don’t completely resemble a franchise operating as if the Reagan administration was still in effect – though the franchise’s heyday did coincide with Ronnie’s political peak.
But if the Stripes’ (needed) evolution is going to take a quantum leap, they need to face reality and deal defensive end Trey Hendrickson ahead of the NFL’s trade deadline, which expires at 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Cincinnati miraculously lost 47-42 at home to the Chicago Bears on Sunday, dropping its record to 3-6 after surrendering 30 points in the second half. Injured quarterback Joe Burrow is nowhere in sight, and neither is a postseason berth for the Bengals – and they didn’t manage to qualify for the playoffs last season, when Burrow and Hendrickson were fully healthy. Yet after pouring hundreds of millions into the roster this year, basically to keep last year’s failed 9-8 edition intact, it’s high time to look to the future.
Burrow suffered a toe injury in Week 2 and hasn’t played since. He may or may not return next month. Hendrickson, who held out of the team’s offseason program and the early part of training camp before extracting a deserved raise for the 2025 season, has been dealing with a hip issue and has missed most of the past three games – inactive in Week 7 and again on Sunday. He’s scheduled to reach free agency in March.
Rather than let him do that – and likely get no more (eventually) than a third-round compensatory pick in return – Bengals owner Mike Brown should break with organizational form and induce a bidding war for the man who is, by far, his best defender. Hendrickson should spark quite a market considering the valuable position he plays, his historical level of production – his 17½ sacks last season topped the NFL, and his 35 spanning the 2023 and ’24 campaigns were also the most league-wide – and, given the fact he’s still only 30 years old, an acquiring team might be willing to offer a little more to get him, then take the opportunity to extend his contract.
It was pretty clear after their summer standoff that Hendrickson and the Bengals wouldn’t be renewing their vows, even if Brown – and he still seems to think NFL contracts should be ironclad commitments – correctly caved to bring the four-time Pro Bowler’s compensation appreciably nearer to peers like Myles Garrett, T.J. Watt, Maxx Crosby and others, that trio set to earn more than double (based on average annual value) the $16 million Hendrickson was initially due. After doling out nine-figure, multi-year extensions to wideouts Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins in March – at the urging of Burrow – Brown begrudgingly agreed at the end of August to pay Hendrickson $29 million in sum for 2025.
But now? Brown can literally cut his losses while benefiting from what is shaping up as a sellers’ market.
Though limited recently by his hip, Hendrickson has remained his typically productive self when on the field, collecting four sacks and, per PFF, 23 pressures this season despite playing for a defense on which he’s pretty much the lone threat opposing offensive coordinators fret about while devising their game plans. And given, much like last year, that the Bengals don’t have a snowball’s chance unless they score at least 30 points, what’s the point? Cincinnati wisely obtained veteran quarterback Joe Flacco to fill in for Burrow when it became clear previous understudy Jake Browning wasn’t up to the task. But after a 33-31 upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 7, the Bengals lost to the previously winless New York Jets 39-38 before Flacco futilely passed for 470 yards and four TDs in Sunday’s defeat.
Now? It’s over for this team.
On the other side of a Week 10 bye await the Steelers, Patriots, Bills and revitalized Ravens (twice). On the other side of 2025 awaits the task of overhauling a double agent defense, a task Cincy has kicked down the road even while placating Burrow with the offensive firepower he’s demanded – for all the good it’s done since the team reached Super Bowl 56 at the end of the 2021 season and then the 2022 AFC championship game. The Bengals D hasn’t ranked better than 25th overall since the start of the 2023 season.
And while Brown has been historically reluctant to hand out top-of the-market contracts – though he’s made progress there with Burrow and Chase – it’s time for him to get comfortable with significant midseason deals and (gasp!) eating some dead cap money ($15.7 million in Hendrickson’s case) … though he wouldn’t have to pay the remainder of his $16 million base salary for 2025. What he might add is something in the neighborhood of a second-round pick or at least a package with an equivalent value to fortify a defense that’s put so much inordinate pressure on Burrow and, now, Flacco. And, according to various reports Sunday morning (including one by FOX NFL insider Jay Glazer), the Bengals might finally be open to taking calls on Hendrickson given their increasingly apparent predicament.
It’s an easier concept to grasp than Reaganomics and might eventually help Burrow and Co. get a long-awaited Lombardi Trophy, the quarterback once boasting Cincinnati’s championship window was open as long as he was active. So far, the Burrow-era Bengals haven’t delivered the 57-year-old organization’s first title. But maybe by dealing Hendrickson – plus, perhaps, corner Cam Taylor-Britt and others – while embracing the way NFL business is conducted in the 21st century, they might finally get to the promised land.
Trey Hendrickson landing spots?
New England Patriots: With more than $51 million in available cap space, per Over The Cap, plus a surplus of 2026 draft picks boosted by deals consummated just last week, they have the money and draft capital to make Cincinnati a compelling offer while potentially providing Hendrickson a home he can thrive in to finish out his career.
Dallas Cowboys: Only the Patriots have a bigger cap overage than Jerry Jones’ $30 million. And his depleted defense certainly could use capable reinforcements given how it’s failed to recover from the summer trade of DE Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. Parsons’ departure did line Jones’ draft coffers, though it’s hard to see him parting with one of his extra first-rounders for Hendrickson.
Detroit Lions: They just gave DE Aidan Hutchinson a four-year, $180 million extension. But there’s money left over for a team that’s also Super Bowl-caliber – and could certainly use another relentless QB hunter opposite its newly minted star.
