{"id":683292,"date":"2026-01-17T03:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/683292\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T03:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:21:12","slug":"bengals-top-free-agent-they-cant-afford-to-lose-isnt-a-shocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/683292\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals’ top free agent they can’t afford to lose isn’t a shocker"},"content":{"rendered":"

All signs, including recent reporting<\/a>, hint at a final goodbye between the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> and Trey Hendrickson this offseason.<\/p>\n

But it has never been that simple with the Bengals<\/a> and Hendrickson, right?<\/p>\n

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Before anything else, there\u2019s the matter of need. Both Hendrickson and Joseph Ossai are scheduled to be free agents, leaving the Bengals pass-rush totally reliant on Myles Murphy and Shemar Stewart.<\/p>\n

That and Hendrickson\u2019s production are reasons why PFF\u2019s Bradley Locker<\/a> writes that he\u2019s the one free agent the Bengals can\u2019t afford to lose:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2024 All-Pro was limited to just 285 snaps this season, but he still flourished with a 90.0 PFF pass-rush grade and 23 pressures across seven games. He finished fourth on the team in pressures and paced the unit in PFF overall grade (minimum 100 snaps), which speaks volumes about the state of the Bengals\u2019 pass rush without him.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: Duke Tobin’s anticipated Bengals address underwhelms<\/a><\/p>\n

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And to be fair, the Bengals\u2019 list of important free agents this offseason is a very short one.<\/p>\n

Onlookers shouldn’t scoff at the idea of a Hendrickson return, either. He\u2019s 31, wants a big contract and coming off an injury, so it\u2019s always possible he has a quiet market in free agency, then comes back on a short deal, if not the franchise tag.<\/p>\n

Right now, though, Hendrickson is pretty much a layup as the Bengals\u2019 top free agent.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Bengals players slated to become free agents<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Bengals’ top free agent they can’t afford to lose isn’t a shocker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All signs, including recent reporting, hint at a final goodbye between the Cincinnati Bengals and Trey Hendrickson this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,10051,227,256,2296,7,194,2714,9256,4672,6,1496,2975,1503],"class_list":["post-683292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-bengals","tag-bradley-locker","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-football","tag-free-agent","tag-free-agents","tag-joseph-ossai","tag-myles-murphy","tag-nfl","tag-shemar-stewart","tag-the-bengals","tag-trey-hendrickson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115908292373281511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}