The Cincinnati Bengals have fumbled the Trey Hendrickson so bad, they actually look like the worst-managed team in the AFC North; which is saying a lot considering the Cleveland Browns are in that same division.
Cleveland looks like it knows what it’s doing, even with five quarterbacks going into training camp, while the Bengals couldn’t be more clueless. Cincinnati is in unfamiliar territory having to throw around expensive contracts like there’s no salary cap.
The Bengals are known to be on the cheap side and nobody knows that more than Hendrickson. According to ESPN insider Adam Schefter, Hendrickson said there’s been no further communication between his camp and the Bengals. Apparently he’s been waiting for them to come to a resolution one way or the other and it’s been silence.
Trey Hendrickson statement today to ESPN: “No communication has taken place between my camp and the organization post draft. The offers prior to the draft did not reflect the vision we shared and were promised last offseason if I continued to play at a high level. Coaches are… pic.twitter.com/2MKBL60ATg
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 12, 2025
Crazy the Bengals are handling Hendrickson’s situation like this. They granted him the freedom to talk with teams while briefly negotiating a new deal. But the two couldn’t come to an agreement. The Bengals naturally drafted his supposed replacement and now they’re giving Hendrickson the cold shoulder.
The Bengals are doing everything wrong in terms of handling the Hendrickson situation in the best way possible.
Why the Cleveland Browns come out winners of Bengals-Hendrickson debacle
So what does this have to do with the Cleveland Browns? Well, they’re no longer the worst run team in the division … at least for now. They’ve long been criticized for their rash decision-making. That came into the spotlight again during the NFL Draft when they drafted two quarterbacks after signing Joe Flacco and trading for Kenny Pickett this offseason.
The Bengals didn’t have to re-sign Hendrickson. But they could have handled this so much better. This is something the NFL would expect the Browns to do. But the Bengals doing this is an odd occurrence.
What makes this so odd is the Bengals were once AFC contenders. Back then, they made decisions like this. Now they look like a team that doesn’t know how to handle being a contender, much like the Browns.
Cincinnati has to learn from this. I’m not saying they had to pay Hendrickson, but giving him the cold shoulder solves nothing. He’s the NFL’s sack leader from a year ago and Cincinnati just iced him out.
The Bengals are going to learn a hard lesson from this because if this is how they treat their stars, it could be hard to get future players to want to play there and they need a whole lot of reinforcements on defense before Week 1.