The Bengals need to look hard at this trade offer...

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses a hypothetical trade offer for Cincinnati Bengals pass rusher Trey Hendrickson!

Transcript

00:00Is a Trey Hendrickson trade still possible for the Bengals? Well, there's an interesting

00:03hypothetical trade offer going around the internet right now, and in this video,

00:07I'll explain whether or not it would actually get the Bengals to move him.

00:13Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here, and as we sit here in

00:17the doldrums of the offseason in early June, I don't think anything has actually changed

00:22between the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson. I don't think he's going to show up next week

00:25for mandatory minicamp. I don't think we're going to hear anything about him between minicamp and

00:29the start of training camp, and he may show up for the start of training camp just to avoid being

00:33fine, but I don't foresee him partaking in the majority of any training camp activity. I think

00:38he is still very much dug in with his demands, and I think the Bengals are very much dug in and

00:42will assume that he will eventually come back to the table and accept whatever offer is in front

00:46of him. And on top of all of that, I don't think the Bengals are having any serious trade talks with

00:50other teams at this time. And the reasoning behind that has everything to do with timing. If the

00:55Bengals didn't get an offer that they wanted to jump at in March and April prior to free agency

01:00beginning and the NFL draft happening, they're probably not going to get the offer that's going

01:04to make them move at all in the middle of June. Rosters are pretty much set. Cap space has been

01:08maxed out around the league, and the nearest NFL draft is still 10 months away. And if there is a

01:13team seriously considering trading for Trey Hendrickson, it's probably going to be a contender

01:18that has the assets that the Bengals would want to get in return. But again, at this point in the

01:22offseason, I don't think they're going to see those assets come back their way, which is why I thought

01:26it was interesting that now you had four ESPN writers come up with trade proposals that would

01:31get the Bengals to send Trey Hendrickson off to another contender. And out of these four proposals,

01:35I thought the one from Seth Walder was the most interesting one because he was the only one that

01:39offered a player coming back in return for Hendrickson. And it's not just the fact that a player was

01:44included, but it was who the player was in his relation to the Bengals. The offer had the Bengals

01:49trading Trey Hendrickson to the Washington Commanders and getting a 2026 third round pick,

01:53a 2027 seventh round pick, and defensive tackle Jerzon Newton coming back in return.

01:58And guys, I got to be honest with you. When I saw Newton's name included in this hypothetical trade

02:02offer, my eyes lit up because he was one of my favorite players, not just defensive tackles.

02:06He was one of my favorite players, period, in the entire 2024 draft class. I thought he was an

02:12ideal three technique defensive tackle for the Bengals to target that year because of his

02:16athleticism profile, his production profile, his game tape, it all screamed everything that the

02:21Bengals have been missing at that position really since Larry Ogunjobi was here in 2021. And before

02:25that, you know, Geno Atkins' entire career, maybe. I don't understand how the Bengals aren't

02:29desperately starved for a player like Atkins or even the one season that they got out of Ogunjobi

02:34because they haven't really targeted any player like that since 2021. But I did think that there was

02:39a chance that the Bengals would draft Newton because they met with him twice before the draft,

02:42once at the Combine, once for a late top 30 visit. And when he was falling into the second round

02:45because of a foot injury that he suffered at the end of his college career, I thought the

02:48Bengals would potentially pounce on him in the second round. But unfortunately, he went off

02:52the board 36 overall and the Bengals picked 49th and ended up drafting another defensive tackle

02:56in Chris Jenkins Jr. So I think if the Bengals were offered a player that they were at the very least

03:00eyeing in the second most recent NFL draft, well, that means that they would get three years of clear

03:05roster control over him because he's got three years left on his rookie contract. I think that that

03:09would at least entice them or perk their ears up in these hypothetical trade talks. But then you got to

03:13take a step back and you got to take a deep breath and assess the entire situation and realize that

03:17you're talking about trading away an all pro pass rusher for someone who is 22 years old, who's

03:22only played one year in the NFL and who fell in the NFL draft for potentially a damaging long-term

03:27problem. The whole reason why Newton was there in the second round is because he had this foot injury

03:30that clearly impacted how he played as a rookie. So even someone like me who was firmly in Newton's

03:35fan club last year has to realize that there is definite risk with sending off a known commodity in

03:39Hendrickson for someone who only has promise and upside and a large injury question mark next to

03:43him. But at the end of the day, this is probably the best kind of offer that the Bengals would get

03:47at this point in the offseason for trading away Hendrickson. A team who is going all in and is

03:51trying to win now is not going to give up a player of equal caliber of Hendrickson. They would try to

03:55entice the Bengals by giving them someone with a lot of upside and in this case, someone that they

03:59were at least interested in drafting. So as tempting of an offer that it is, I think the Bengals would still

04:03firmly decline this offer. But at the very least, including a player may get the ball rolling in some of

04:08these hypothetical discussions at least. But that's my take on it. And I want to hear what you have to

04:13say. Would you take this deal if you're running the Bengals? Let me know in the comments below.

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