The Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs let Orlando Brown Jr. go for a reason and the Cincinnati Bengals are coming to that realization now. Brown is hustling the Bengals to the tune of $64 million over four years. That wasteful contract is putting major binds on this team, particularly this year in regards to Trey Hendrickson.
What makes this such a waste of money isn’t the fact that it’s an offensive lineman eating up that much money; it’s the fact that it’s the 66th-best offensive lineman collecting that type of pay day, according to PFF's grading metrics in 2024. The Ravens and Chiefs found out early on that Brown wasn’t going to be worth $16 million a year and the Bengals are realizing their desperation cost them.
They signed Brown because they desperately needed to get reinforcements in the trenches to avoid letting their franchise quarterback get assaulted in the pocket. Yet, Brown hasn’t produced even close to what the Bengals have valued him at.
Orlando Brown Jr.’s wasteful contract is backfiring with the Trey Hendrickson situation
The worst part about Brown’s contract is that it’s hindering the Bengals badly in their contract negotiations with Trey Hendrickson. The Bengals and Hendrickson are seemingly at a stalemate. The Bengals have granted him the chance to find a new team, but that hasn’t really materialized either.
Hendrickson seems keen on playing with the Bengals, but not for what he’s making this season and is threatening to sit out until a new contract gets resolved. The two can’t come to an agreement and it’s clear one player could be having an indirect effect on that.
The Bengals had to dish out massive contracts to both Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase, as well as extend Mike Gesicki this offseason. That doesn’t leave a lot of room to add Hendrickson back to the fold. But of all the money tied up in the offense, the least deserving in Brown.
Cincinnati could restructure his contract to give them enough wiggle room to keep Hendrickson as long as he wants, but that doesn’t seem like an option. If it were, that probably would have already been done. Instead, the Bengals are stuck with their $64 million mistake.
There’s a lot to learn from this offseason for the Bengals. They can learn how to better manage contract extensions to avoid all the drama they endured. They also learned why some players are worth paying and others aren’t. It should have been a red flag that neither the Ravens nor Chiefs wanted to pay Brown.
Now, Cincinnati’s left with the fallout of overpaying for an underperforming lineman. I’m sure they’ll think twice before letting their desperation make the decisions for them.