00:00The Bengals and Trey Hendrickson remain far apart in extension talks, and now that training camp is starting without him,
00:04the Bengals' plan with Hendrickson is becoming very clear, and in this video, I'll explain why no other team should want to emulate it.
00:13Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here, and like many of you know,
00:18Bengals' training camp has already started, and Trey Hendrickson is nowhere to be found.
00:22This news is about a day or so old, and I'm just now getting to it because I wanted to kind of really gather my thoughts here in a very cohesive manner,
00:28and they're about the same as when I first learned the news that Hendrickson and the Bengals were not able to come to an agreement
00:34before veterans were supposed to report to camp on Tuesday.
00:38Now, I have seen every angle of this story that's gone on for about six or seven months now.
00:43Hendrickson is claiming that he will not play for the Bengals this year without a new contract extension,
00:48and the Bengals apparently still don't want to guarantee him any money beyond the first year of said extension,
00:53and that continues to be the crux of the situation because at first, the Bengals weren't even offering Hendrickson
00:58a multi-year deal.
00:59They were just stuck on the one-year deal, and obviously, you can't guarantee anything beyond one year
01:03when the contract is just one year, but then they shifted off that.
01:06They went to a multi-year extension because the likes of Max Crosby, T.J. Watt, Miles Garrett,
01:11they've all gotten at least three-year deals, but a three-year deal for someone who's 30 years old
01:15is not actually a three-year deal if there are no guarantees beyond just the first year.
01:20So even if the Bengals pivoted from a one-year offer to a multi-year offer,
01:23it's still ostensibly a one-year offer for Hendrickson, at least in his eyes.
01:28In reality, the way the Bengals see Hendrickson right now is no different than how they saw him
01:32all the way back in February.
01:34And if that is the case, now that the entire team is working together in this ramp-up period
01:39before an incredibly important month of September, when the entire football world is looking at them
01:44to see if they can start fast, if all this is happening now, and this is still how you see one of your best players,
01:50why is he still here? I guess he's not here, but why is he still on the roster?
01:55If over the last six months you have not changed your mind at giving Hendrickson the security
01:59that he's demanding, otherwise he won't play, I don't know how that's going to change in the next six weeks.
02:05It'll probably have to in order for this to get done, but if the Bengals truly don't see him like that,
02:10why are they holding on to him? Or at least why did they hold on to him during the periods of time
02:14in which they could have traded him and potentially salvaged the 2025 version of this team?
02:18Of course, I'm being obtuse. I know the actual plan, which is to strong-arm him into accepting a deal
02:24that's within their parameters, and he has no choice but to just take it because it's the best deal on the table.
02:28And the Bengals are going to want to do this even more now that Hendrickson is not reporting to camp at all
02:32because by holding out, he is going to be fined for every single training camp practice that he's not there for.
02:37$50,000 for every single practice.
02:40And the Bengals are going to put that in his face and say,
02:42hey, if you want to recuperate some of this cash, sign on the dotted line.
02:45And however you view Hendrickson, whether you want to pay him the contract that he wants
02:49or you wanted to trade him the moment that he requested said trade,
02:53how is this the best way about doing this?
02:55Look around the league. Look at how the other top pass rushers are being treated.
02:59The only one who can kind of relate is Micah Parsons and the Dallas Cowboys,
03:02and who in the hell wants to be compared to Jerry Jones at the time like this?
03:05And I'm so far past the talking point if he has to honor the last year of his contract
03:09when none of his other contemporaries have had to do the same thing nor wanted to do the same thing.
03:13Playing on a one-year deal without a sense of it being guaranteed at this stage in his career
03:17is such a giant risk that no one in his shoes would ever take.
03:20I want to make it very clear that while I disagree with how the Bengals are valuing Hendrickson right now,
03:25I'm not blaming them for doing so.
03:27If they view Hendrickson as someone that may fall off a cliff after this year or next year,
03:32and they don't want to be liable and hold on to him with guaranteed money for that,
03:36I understand their concern.
03:37I don't agree with it, but I understand it.
03:39But if he is still on the roster right now, which he is,
03:42then you have made the choice already to give him what he wants.
03:45Keeping him and then forcing him to take something that he doesn't want to take
03:48is the best way possible to get a version of Trey Hendrickson
03:51that's not even worth keeping around in the first place.
03:54He has yet to practice with his new defense,
03:56and being implemented into a new scheme is going to take even longer the more that he's out.
04:00They are hurting themselves by doing this all for the sake of trying to make a point,
04:04which they've been trying to do for 30 years, and look where that's gotten them.
04:08Zero championships.
04:09The start of training camp needed to be when this got done,
04:12because now you have a team that's feeling so much pressure to perform earlier in the season,
04:16and one of their best players is nowhere to be found.
04:18And it's yet another damning example of just how far behind this front office is
04:22compared to the other teams that they're trying to compete with.
