a reported $34.8 million for 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Bengals could use the tag on Hendrickson, but should they?<\/p>\n
Players generally do not like the franchise tag. While the tag gets them a large sum of money over one season, it doesn\u2019t provide the long-term stability NFL players crave. If a player suffers a major injury, their long-term future is once again in jeopardy after that season ends<\/p>\n
Given the Bengals\u2019 tense history with Hendrickson, one would think placing the tag on him would once again make for a public, messy contract dispute, and neither side seems to benefit from that. From Hendrickson\u2019s de facto press conference on the sidelines of a practice to the unfortunate end of Hendrickson\u2019s season due to injury, some sort of absolute resolution makes sense for all parties involved.<\/p>\n
With a defense that needs so much help and reports that the team is going to be active in free agency to improve that unit, cutting $30.2 million off of your salary cap space before free agency even begins could handicap them.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, from a football perspective, tagging Hendrickson could make sense. Former first-round pick Myles Murphy showed improvement in 2026, but there isn\u2019t much proven production behind him. Joseph Ossai is set to be a free agent, and 2025 first-round pick Shemar Stewart struggled to stay on the field and struggled to make an impact when he was on it.<\/p>\n
The Bengals could easily see the value in another one-year rental of Hendrickson strictly due to the need for production. If they want Murphy to continue to develop on one side, but don\u2019t trust Stewart to be effective in a starting role, they do have the right to place the tag on Hendrickson and expect him to play.<\/p>\n
There is always the chance that Hendrickson refuses to sign the tag, leading both sides to the same kind of stalemate we saw last season.<\/p>\n
Another option the Bengals have is tagging Hendrickson with the intention of trading him. Essentially, the Bengals can use that as a tactic to try to get something in return for Hendrickson, rather than letting him walk and hoping for a compensatory pick from the NFL. That scenario would require a trade partner that is willing to part with enough to satisfy the Bengals and agree to a new contract that would satisfy Hendrickson and his camp as well.<\/p>\n
It seems like the two sides are headed toward a split this spring, but with the NFL and the Bengals specifically, anything can happen.<\/p>\n
What do you think the Bengals \u2018should\u2019 do with Hendrickson? And what do you think ultimately \u2018will\u2019 do? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this before, but the Cincinnati Bengals and Trey Hendrickson are entering an offseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,87463,2296,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-768133","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-discussion","12":"tag-cincinnatibengals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116112403034956013","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768133","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=768133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}