{"id":731150,"date":"2026-02-05T13:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/731150\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T13:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:18:16","slug":"trey-hendrickson-projected-to-land-with-afc-north-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/731150\/","title":{"rendered":"Trey Hendrickson projected to land with AFC North rival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Cincinnati Bengals and defensive end Trey Hendrickson appear to be ready to part ways this offseason. After two contentious offseasons trying to negotiate a long-term contract extension, the two sides were never able to agree on anything beyond a raise for the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After missing most of the season with an injury, Hendrickson is set to hit the open market when the new league year begins in March, unless the Bengals were to franchise tag him. At this point, that seems unlikely, as both sides seem to be ready to make a clean break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hendrickson will have plenty of suitors on the market an Bleacher Report\u2019s Alex Kay projects that Hendrickson will sign with the Bengals\u2019 AFC North rivals, the Baltimore Ravens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThe Ravens will be looking to make a splash in free agency to open the post-John Harbaugh era,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25369749-predicting-landing-spot-top-2026-nfl-free-agent-every-position\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Kay wrote<\/a>. \u201cWith Jesse Minter now at the helm, Baltimore could steal Hendrickson away from an AFC North rival and deploy him as the centerpiece of a pass-rushing unit that must improve in 2026. Baltimore\u2019s 30 sacks this past season tied for the third-fewest in the league and marked a significant regression from the 54\u2014the second-most in the NFL\u2014the team amassed the prior year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hendrickson has been incredibly productive since signing with the Bengals in 2021, so watching him leave would be tough for fans, regardless, but to see him leave for a division rival would really sting. The Bengals aren\u2019t likely to use the $34 million franchise tag on the 31-year-old, so that would leave him free to sign with any team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Naturally, the thought of playing Hendrickson twice a year doesn\u2019t sound great, but it could be a real possibility in about a month and a half\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cincinnati Bengals and defensive end Trey Hendrickson appear to be ready to part ways this offseason. After&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,7574,2296,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-731150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-bengals","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnati-bengals-rumors","12":"tag-cincinnatibengals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116018224246982925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731150","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=731150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}