{"id":749164,"date":"2026-02-13T11:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/749164\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T11:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T11:53:14","slug":"trey-hendrickson-free-agent-prediction-has-him-joining-the-chicago-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/749164\/","title":{"rendered":"Trey Hendrickson free agent prediction has him joining the Chicago Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cincyjungle.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> may not be willing to give Hendrickson a lot of money this offseason to stay in Cincinnati, is any other team going to be willing to give him the money he commands?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If the Bengals tag-and-trade him, is there going to be a willing trade partner that wants to acquire an edge rusher who\u2019s over 30 years old and can be a headcahe at times for any team\u2019s front office? If the Bengals release him or let him walk in free agency, is there a team that will want to pay him a lot of money to sign him?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Those questions are what make this situation interesting. We always think about what the Bengals will do or won\u2019t do. But what about other teams? They may have a bigger say in how things play out with Trey Hendrickson than the Bengals do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/stories\/nfl\/2026-nfl-free-agency-top-100-players-available-potential-fits\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FOX Sports\u2019 Greg Auman<\/a> projects Hendrickson to leave the Bengals, the AFC North, and the AFC entirely. The destination? Chicago, to play for the resurgent Bears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cHendrickson, 31, doesn\u2019t have the luster he had a year ago,\u201d Auman said. \u201cInstead of coming off back-to-back 17.5-sack seasons and four straight Pro Bowls, he\u2019s now coming off core muscle surgery in December that limited him to four sacks in seven games in 2025. He got a one-year, $29 million deal from the Bengals last year, but isn\u2019t likely to draw as much this time around. ESPN has him as the league\u2019s No. 1 overall free agent, but will he get more than one year guaranteed, and at much more than $20 million a year? He needs 19 sacks to reach 100 for his career and could easily get that in two more healthy seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hendrickson will be seeking a multi-year deal with multiple years of guaranteed money. If he doesn\u2019t get that, though, could that play into the Bengals\u2019 favor?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This situation actually has many more layers than some might think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Cincinnati Bengals may not be willing to give Hendrickson a lot of money this offseason to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,2493,2424,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-749164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-bears","11":"tag-chicagobears","12":"tag-cincinnati-bengals-free-agency","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116063188106171115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749164","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=749164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}