Duke Tobin had hinted at this outcome.
The de facto Cincinnati Bengals general manager’s public comments at the NFL scouting combine struck one tone when discussing his receivers and another when discussing his premier pass rusher.
Wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase “is always going to be our priority,” Tobin said last week. “He’s going to end up being the No. 1-paid non-QB in the league. We’re there. Let’s get it done.”
And on Chase’s counterpart, Tee Higgins, whose contract was set to expire before the Bengals designated him with a second straight franchise tag?
“Whenever I’m in charge of a football team, I want Tee Higgins — so I’m going to do what I can to get Tee Higgins,” Tobin said. “Our preference with Tee Higgins is to do a long-term agreement.”
But when Tobin shifted to complimenting edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, who has finished with a monster 17.5 sacks each of the past two seasons, his language changed. He hedged on future plans with words like “hopefully” and “we would like” while veering into past tense and language that was more passive.
There was reason to anticipate this week’s outcome, when the Bengals granted the 30-year-old Hendrickson permission to seek a trade. Was this obvious? That depends on how much one believes coaches and executives’ words during what many in the NFL world affectionately call “lying season.”
But Tobin did not say “we’re there” with Hendrickson as he did Chase and he did not say “he fits us; we fit with him” as he did about Higgins.
“He’s been a great signing for us,” Tobin said instead. “We’ve been a great fit for him. He’s been a great fit for us.”
Sure, the Bengals “would like to keep him not only happy but with us on a longer-term basis,” Tobin reasoned. But considering the cost, the Bengals knew then what they demonstrated this week: “We’re not there yet.”
So after Hendrickson requested permission to seek a trade for a second straight year, on Thursday, the Bengals granted it.
The outcomes that could unfold still range widely, from trade to release to reunion. But cracks in the fissures are deepening, and they could lead to clarity in Cincinnati for more than just Hendrickson.
Does losing Hendrickson mean keeping Higgins with Chase?
Few around the league believed the Bengals would successfully extend all three of their stars. The club is not known for being progressive or luxurious in its spending, and Cincinnati is already paying quarterback Joe Burrow handsomely.
No one questions whether the Bengals will extend Chase after he earned the receiving triple crown with 127 catches, 1,708 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns — all 2024 league highs.
In four years since the Bengals drafted him fifth overall, Chase has raced to 5,425 yards and 46 touchdowns.
So the question circling front offices and combine halls was instead: Will the Bengals keep Higgins or Hendrickson?
“I think they’d probably sign two of those guys and they lose Higgins,” one NFC executive told Yahoo Sports at the combine. “Or they could say, ‘Hey, well, we’re just going to go all out on offense and go young on defense and trade Trey for a draft pick or something like that. Because Trey is probably the riskiest of the three, just because he’s the oldest.”
The Bengals’ actions this week seem to reflect a similar progression of thought. Tagging Higgins for the second straight offseason, at a price of $26.2 million fully guaranteed in 2025 if no long-term extension is reached, indicated interest in keeping him but not a final result. Would a receiver-desperate team offer a great tag-and-trade deal that could sway Cincinnati? That seemed possible — but far less likely after Hendrickson was granted permission.
The players are all working from the same puzzle piece, salary cap pie or whichever front office age-old metaphor you prefer to use. The next two questions thus are: 1) Is the team willing to offer coinciding financial incentives that each of the three players would agree to? And 2) Do the Bengals even want to?
“He chases [sacks], but you can’t knock his production,” the NFC executive said of Hendrickson. “But as he approaches his twilight years of his career where he probably has a good three years left, do you want to pay that $30 [million] for him? Do you want to commit freaking $160 million to four players? Maybe more than that?”
The executive said they did not believe in a hard-and-fast ceiling on the percentage of a cap a team can afford to play its top several players without suffering. Money chases talent, the executive reasoned, so the question instead is: If a team spends this percentage, which element of roster construction would take the hit?
The Bengals seem to be considering that and acting accordingly.
Deeper look at Hendrickson’s production could explain Bengals’ approach
No one’s doubting that Hendrickson’s sack numbers are impressive nor that his impact is felt on a defense. But the correlation between Hendrickson’s production and the Bengals’ defensive strengths did not always trend in a direction that would push the club to pay him the $30+ million that some league sources believe he’s seeking.
The Bengals finished 25th in points allowed and yards allowed last season as they fell short of the playoffs. So Bengals brass must ask themselves: In what areas was Hendrickson helping and in what areas was there room for improvement?
On obvious passing downs and in pressuring the quarterback, Hendrickson starred. His 24% pass-rush win rate trailed only Danielle Hunter across league edge rushers, per ESPN Stats and Info. Pro Football Focus analysts gave him the fifth-highest pass rush grade among 211 edge rushers. And yet … when looking at his run defense grade, Hendrickson fell to 67th of 211.
His 2023 gap was still more stark, ranking sixth of 197 edge rushers in pass rush and 156th of 197 in run defense.
Working with this data honestly requires two caveats. First: Hendrickson’s run defense improved from his first 17.5-sack year to his second and thus he could make a case it will continue to trend positively. Second: PFF grades are limited in that the company’s analysts don’t know what a player and his teammates’ assignments were, and thus they might credit or knock a defender for a result without properly contextualizing what was “supposed” to happen and how responsible a player actual was for the result.
Even so, this isn’t a gap of five or 10 or 20 players. The more favorable gap spans 60+ players — and multiple league sources with knowledge of the Bengals’ thinking confirm that the team agrees his run defense and all-around defensive impact paint a different story than his sack dominance suggests.
“He’s a situational pass rusher; a designated pass rusher,” one league source said. “Where he does the most damage is either when you have a lead or in passing situations. Those kind of guys — to me, they may have the numbers but are they worth three starters on your team?”
Playing against run-heavy teams in the AFC North like the Baltimore Ravens means in “some of [those] games, he may just not be effective because of the style of play.”
Add in a defensive coordinator shift from Lou Anarumo to Al Golden, and the Bengals want a more multiple defensive front than they’ve had. Hendrickson’s production has come largely from one spot. And even if he could become more versatile, the Bengals will ask themselves: At what cost?
“Defensively, [the Bengals] are more than one player away from being a good defense,” the league source said. “And I completely understand him trying to maximize his money while he can because he’s 30 years old and it’s like one or two years, and there’s always that dropoff.”
Losing Hendrickson would mean losing the most productive player on Cincinnati’s defense. There’s still a chance he tests his market and ends up back in Cincinnati on a reworked deal.
But the chance of a divorce seems increasingly likely. The Bengals seem willing to bet the sum of their parts might be better without him.
“We have the ability to build the defense,” Tobin said at the combine. “We know our defense wasn’t good enough. It couldn’t get stops when it needed it, couldn’t protect leads, didn’t get off the field. And then in critical moments when the game was the line, it didn’t rise to the occasion.”
“We’re going to attack the defense. And we already have.”
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