FINALLY some good news comes from the Cincinnati Bengals and Trey Hendrickson...

AtoZ Sports

John Sheeran discusses the reports of The Cincinnati Bengals and Trey Hendrickson resuming contract talks!

Transcript

00:00The Bengals finally gave us positive contract news for the first time in what feels like a

00:03long time. While I don't think anything is eminent on the horizon, I will explain in this video

00:07what the new timeline should look like between the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson.

00:14Hi again, Bengals fans. John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here. By the grace of any and

00:18all football gods, we got some positive news about Trey Hendrickson and the Bengals front office.

00:24It was first reported on Father's Day by ESPN's Jeremy Fowler that the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson

00:28quote unquote resumed contract talks after a very contentious past couple months about the subject.

00:34And when I say contentious, I mean that in every single definition of the word. There were jabs

00:38taken from Trey to the Bengals. There were jabs from the Bengals to Trey. He showed up for one

00:43voluntary workout and made a giant extended press conference out of it. He didn't show up for

00:47mandatory minicamp despite the warnings from Zach Taylor and the team about being fined. And now

00:50he's subjecting himself to be fined well over $100,000. And while all of this was happening,

00:55there was basically no communication back and forth between Trey and the Bengals. And even

00:58when communication was happening, there were reports that Trey's camp was only speaking

01:02to the lower level members of the Bengals front office and not the likes of Duke Tobin or Katie

01:06Blackburn. So now the talks have resumed, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's significant

01:10progress toward a deal being done in the near future. But I do think a soft deadline has to

01:15be established with the talks resuming now. Because if you're the Bengals and you're holding firm here,

01:19you know the real deadline is week one of the regular season. That was the case for Joe

01:23Burrow in 2023. That was the case for Jamar Chase in 2024. And obviously there was a 50% hit right

01:28there. But this team does not negotiate during the regular season. They saved that for the entire

01:32offseason. And if there was, again, no progress to be made with Trey, then you probably wouldn't

01:36start talks again until maybe training camp if he's sitting out then. Like right now, nothing is

01:40happening. There are no minicamps for Trey to report to. There's no workouts. There's no reason

01:43for anyone to be in the building outside of their own accord. There's nothing that's pushing the

01:47Bengals into doing this right now. Whereas if it was the start of training camp and Hendrickson did not

01:52report, then that would be okay. Let's try to bring him back into the fold here as we have six weeks

01:56until the regular season begins. I think the only reason considering who the Bengals are and how

02:00they've traditionally operated is that they want to get this done before training camp begins.

02:04Because it should go without saying that you want Trey Hendrickson to be a part of your six-week

02:08ramp up into the regular season. You don't want him just waiting on the sidelines either holding in

02:13like Jamar Chase did last year or just being away from the team entirely. This has been a constant

02:17for Bengals training camp going all the way back to 2022 when you had Jesse Bates being placed on the

02:21franchise tender and he didn't sign it until right before week one. In 2023, you had negotiations

02:25for T Higgins and Joe Burrow taking the entirety of camp and obviously they didn't get anything done

02:29with Higgins that year. And then you had Chase last year holding in and just watching training

02:32camp practices. For a team that should be so focused on starting fast and looking like the best possible

02:37version of themselves in week one, which has not been the case in the entirety of the Zach Taylor era,

02:41you want as little distractions and as quality of training camp practices as possible. And having your

02:46best defensive player out there obviously helps. And going back to that word again,

02:50distraction when it has to be asked if whether or not something is a distraction or not,

02:54it's probably a distraction. And this was basically the answer that Joe Burrow gave when

02:58he was asked about the Trey Hendrickson situation. He said, of course, it's a distraction. He actually

03:02said, of course, twice technically to reemphasize the point. But if one of your best players is not

03:07participating on the field with you and everyone's talking about it, it's naturally going to be some

03:11level of a distraction. It may not have been a huge distraction in the locker room now considering it was

03:16just May and June and not July and August. But again, if one of your best guys is not there,

03:20you know, that means something. And it would not shock me if Burrow's recent answer on this subject

03:25spurred the Bengals just a little bit to re-engage talks with Hendrickson. And if you're looking at

03:29things from Hendrickson's point of view, he set himself up to be fined over $100,000 for missing

03:33minicamp. And he would be fined well over that amount for missing the entirety of training camp as

03:37someone who's under contract. At a certain point, those costs do add up if there's no new extension

03:41to be signed. And obviously, you can swallow those costs with a new extension, but that hasn't

03:46happened yet. And I have no doubt that he wants to be on the field for training camp, but it wouldn't

03:49do him any good and wouldn't do any of his past statements about holding out and sitting out

03:53actual games if he were to just return for training camp without a deal. It does take two to tango in

03:57this case, and it does seem like both sides are at least starting that process again. So to come back

04:01to the table now, when there's nothing pressing for another five weeks, I do think that this is a step

04:05forward in the right direction towards something getting done before this really starts to impact the team.

04:10I wish I could say the same about Shamar Stewart and what's going on there, but you know, you got

04:14to take the wins when you can get it. A training camp with zero distractions and restrictions has to

04:18be the Bengals' goal going forward. And I do think that resuming talks with Trey Hendrickson right now,

04:22it does allow that goal to eventually be accomplished.

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