The update today as far as the Cincinnati Bengals progress with their Big 3 (Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Trey Hendrickson was that the team has allowed Hendrickson and his agent to seek a trade partner.
Ian Rapoport further updated things as this looks like it is headed that way with some slight optimism with the other two:
Ian opining that Trey will get traded, as well as reporting that some level of progress has been made with Tee and Ja’Marr.
Bengals really need to get Tee re-signed before Monday to allow them more flexibility in the FA market. Close that deal now. https://t.co/xztrAKuYuT
— Andre Perrotta (@andreperrotta13) March 7, 2025
As Andre Perrotta adds, Cincinnati needs to pick things up on getting deals done with Chase and Higgins, who currently account for roughly $21 million and $26 million against the cap. Negotiating long-term deals would lower those numbers, giving the team significantly more flexibility headed into free agency. Also trading Hendrickson creates $16 million in cap space as well.
This feels like a failure because it is on the front office’s part. To not be able to sign all three of these players to long term contracts while there are no real noteworthy young players on the horizon worth huge extensions and in the midst of a salary cap explosion is pretty inexcusable.
We will have to wait to see what the Bengals get in return for Hendrickson and who they sign in free agency, but they now sit as pretty much the only team who is unwilling to dish out large guaranteed money, which means they aren’t going to be able to land a premier pass rusher who is capable of filling the void left by Hendrickson.
It is nice to hear that progress has been made with Chase and Higgins, but these are deals that needed to get done last season. It is too late now and they likely will be paying dearly for trying to “win” negotiations rather than seeing an opportunity to get things done sooner rather than later.
From the beginning, though, those who knew how Cincinnati operates had reason to be pessimistic over the Hendrickson negotiations. He is 30 years old and deserves to reset the market. He especially deserves that when he has been such a bargain the past two seasons. It is clear the Bengals haven’t learned much from the Andrew Whitworth situation, as they’d rather try to fill the void of a great player than pay them after they reach that dreaded 30.
Now the team will likely be forced to sign several pass rushers for a decent chunk of change and use quite a bit of draft capital over the next few years on replacing a guy they’d rather let someone else pay.
