{"id":790946,"date":"2026-03-04T07:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T07:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/790946\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T07:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T07:48:19","slug":"bengals-do-not-franchise-tag-trey-hendrickson-four-time-pro-bowl-de-to-become-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/790946\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals do not franchise tag Trey Hendrickson; four-time Pro Bowl DE to become free agent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati’s decision essentially ends what has been an adventurous (and for some, exhausting) couple of years for Hendrickson and the Bengals, who found themselves mired in a prolonged contract dispute that included pleas for a competitive long-term extension, trade requests, eventual permission and ultimately, a stalemate that ended only after agreeing to a short-term solution<\/a>. With Hendrickson’s revised, one-year deal now just days from expiration, it seems Cincinnati isn’t too keen on keeping the 2024 All-Pro in town.<\/p>\n

Hendrickson posted consecutive 17.5-sack seasons in 2023 and 2024, boosting his earning power at a crucial point in his career as he approached his 31st birthday. Following the prolonged dispute and eventual resolution last offseason, Hendrickson played in just seven games in 2025 — his first single-digit total of games played in a season since 2018 — due to a core muscle injury that required season-ending surgery<\/a> in early December.<\/p>\n

At 31 years old, Hendrickson now likely arrives at a final chance to cash in. He’ll hit free agency for the first time since 2021 and should welcome a collection of interested suitors seeking an upgrade on the edge.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, where might Hendrickson land? Let’s take a look at four potential pairings and one (unlikely) wild-card scenario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cincinnati’s decision essentially ends what has been an adventurous (and for some, exhausting) couple of years for Hendrickson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1227,117,787,256,113,7,88,6,609,4267,250,1503,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-790946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-around-the-nfl","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","12":"tag-detroit-lions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-no-minute","17":"tag-offseason-news","18":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","19":"tag-trey-hendrickson","20":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116169808609719430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790946","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=790946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}