The Hendrickson Drama Comes to a Predictable Resolution

It took a while, but Trey Hendrickson is back at the Bengals facility after getting a $14 million raise for the 2025 season.

There were so many twists and turns, you could be forgiven for assuming it was the plot of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, and much like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the payoff didn’t quite live up to the suspense.  The saga between Trey Hendrickson and the Cincinnati Bengals saw plenty of fireworks, and created more than a few headaches.  Just days ago, though, the saga finally, mercifully came to an end.

Just to recap, Hendrickson, the Bengals star defensive end and without question the best player on their defense, demanded a new contract after leading the NFL in sacks in 2024.  It was a reasonable request: Hendrickson had significantly outplayed his contract, and heading into the 2025 season with a $16 million salary that would pay him less than half of some of his peers was a severe underpay.  Hendrickson had earned more – and the Bengals appeared to agree.

This is important.  None of the reporting during the offseason, during training camp – none of it – claimed that the Bengals were unable or unwilling to negotiate a new deal.  Like the rest of the NFL world, the Bengals appeared to agree that Hendrickson had earned a raise for the 2025 season.  The sticking point, however, was what was going to happen after 2025.

The NFL acronym stands for “National Football League,” but real ones will know that NFL really stands for “not for long.”  Careers are short, Super Bowl-windows close quickly, roster turnover happens in the blink of an eye, and players peak and then fade with equal velocity.  Nothing can be taken for granted in this league.  The players, the coaches, the executives – they’re all collectively waiting for the next shoe to drop.

With that in mind, it’s no mystery why Hendrickson wanted a long-term commitment from the Bengals to go along with the raise.  Security is worth its weight in gold (or cash) to NFL players.  When your career could end in a split-second, future guarantees are your only recourse.

And that is precisely where the Bengals balked.  In their eyes, Hendrickson had earned a raise for this season.  What happened beyond that was open for interpretation – and the Bengals interpreted that as, “Uh, check back with us later.”

In a hard salary cap league where player injuries are the rule, not the exception, committing to future guarantees, particularly for a player entering his age-31 season, is not smart business.  The Bengals are notorious for only guaranteeing the first year of a contract, giving them the flexibility to terminate contracts without much pain for them.  Call it cheap, call it unfair, call it whatever you want – it still makes sense from a business perspective, especially in a full-contact, collision-based sport.

It’s not that the Bengals didn’t want Hendrickson around for the long-haul.  Just last week, the reporting was that the Bengals and Hendrickson had agreed in principle to the money and the years; it was just those pesky guarantees that were the hold-up.  Well, guarantees be damned, I guess. 

Hendrickson clearly saw the writing on the wall.  His leverage was nonexistent.  He demanded a new contract after a remarkable season, and when that didn’t work, he demanded a trade.  Instead of a new team, all Hendrickson got from the trade demand was more reinforcement that the NFL didn’t see him as a player they should be making massive future commitments to.  No team was lining up to pay Hendrickson guaranteed money in 2026 and beyond.  Seems like the Bengals had their fingers on the pulse of this negotiation from the start.

So, instead of the long-term deal Hendrickson wanted, he’ll settle for a nice $14 million raise.  And guess what?  That $14 million comes with no strings attached.  Not too bad for a player who was already under contract.  Hendrickson basically doubled his salary, and all he had to do was skip work and complain

This was always going to be resolved this way.  The Bengals weren’t going to blink on future guarantees, and Hendrickson was always going to demand them.  To resolve this issue, they both agreed to say sayonara to the future, and go all-in on the here and now.

We all should have seen this coming.  This deal makes too much sense.  Hendrickson gets his pay bump and becomes one of the highest-paid defenders in football, and the Bengals get to keep their future flexibility.  It’s a win-win.

Committing huge sums to a defender – especially an aging one – never made any sense for the Bengals.  Their three best players (Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins) all are young and play on the other side of the ball.  The offense demands a larger slice of the salary cap.  The defense has to live with the leftovers.  The main course is the main course; don’t blow it all on the appetizer.

Moving forward, this is the formula for the Bengals.  Big money and big guarantees go to the offense, while the defense is dominated by draft picks.  One side of the ball is cheap and young, the other is expensive and veteran.  Given how offense tends to be more sustainable over time and defense is prone to wild swings in performance even when the personnel doesn’t change, this move doesn’t just make business sense, it’s just plain logical.  The ending of the Hendrickson drama was clear and obvious from the start.  At least now we can get back to talking about the players dominating on the field rather than just dominating headlines.