Trey Hendrickson Could Be Franchise Tagged and Traded by the Bengals. The Drama Is Not Over
The Trey Hendrickson saga is not over. The Cincinnati Bengals could franchise tag the pass rusher and trade him this offseason, ending one of the longest contract standoffs in the NFL.
After two years of public negotiations, neither side seems to have a workable long-term deal in mind. Hendrickson and the Bengals worked out a revised one-year contract last season that put him on track for free agency at the end of 2025. That deadline has now passed. The Bengals are considering using the franchise tag on Hendrickson to maintain control of his rights.
That tag costs around $26.5 million for a pass rusher in 2026. The Bengals would absorb that hit only if they planned to trade him.
The math here is the math. Cincinnati’s pass rusher market value is well below what Hendrickson believes he should get. PFF projects his next deal at around one year for $21 million with $17 million guaranteed. That is a significant haircut from the $30 million he made last season. Hendrickson and his agent are not going to accept that number quietly.
The Bengals are stuck. They cannot pay Hendrickson what he wants. They cannot let him walk for nothing. They cannot tag him and pay him to play because the cap math falls apart.
The only solution is a tag and trade. Tag him, find a partner team willing to take on the cap hit and an extension, and recover whatever draft capital you can. That is the path most NFL insiders see as the eventual outcome.
The market for Hendrickson is real. He is a 30-year-old pass rusher with 17.5 sacks last season. He has been a top-5 pass rusher in the league for three straight years. He is a true Pro Bowl player who can headline a defense.
The questions are age and durability. Hendrickson has played heavy snaps for years. The body has held up well so far, but every pass rusher his age has a cliff coming. Teams paying him have to budget for the possibility that the production drops in 18 months.
The Patriots, Browns, and Falcons have all been mentioned as possible suitors. New England already added A.J. Brown this offseason and could push for Hendrickson as the next big move. Cleveland just traded Myles Garrett and has a giant pass rush hole. Atlanta has been collecting defensive pieces under Raheem Morris and could use a true edge difference-maker.
Cincinnati would presumably want a first-round pick and additional capital. Hendrickson is worth that. The Bengals have a roster need at multiple positions, and converting Hendrickson into a first-rounder plus another piece would be the kind of move that resets the franchise.
The other path is the one that has hurt the Bengals for years. They could let this drag into training camp, have Hendrickson hold out, and lose him on the field while still owing him money. That outcome would be the worst-case scenario for everyone involved.
The franchise tag deadline has already passed. The Bengals chose not to apply the tag earlier in the offseason, which makes the tag-and-trade plan harder to execute. They would need a special transition designation or some kind of creative structure to make it work. None of that is impossible. It is just not clean.
The most likely outcome at this point is that Hendrickson plays out the 2025 season under his revised one-year deal and becomes a free agent in 2027. He hits the open market, gets the deal he wanted, and signs elsewhere. The Bengals get nothing back.
That would be a brutal ending. It is also the most realistic one.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
