Trey Hendrickson is not the only NFL player in a contract dispute. But his conflict has become unquestionably the nastiest of this offseason cycle.
In Cincinnati along, Hendrickson watched Bengals teammates Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins sign major deals near the start of free agency. While those two are deserving of such compensation, Hendrickson has also been a major contributor for the team in recent years and has a reason to assume he'd be right there with them.
Indeed, he has essentially expressed that by calling the front office liars for not following through on what he believes he was promised.
His combined 35 sacks are the most by any NFL player of the last two seasons by a decent margin. But the Bengals have not been willing to meet his asking price - which we assume to be in excess of $30 million APY - and at one point stopped negotiations altogether.
That led to Hendrickson going public with bold remarks about the organization and their handling of the situation.
It appears the team and the player might be inching near a sort of a resolution.
The latest? Hendrickson, who reportedly owns a home in Florida, is apparently here in the area training ahead of camp.
It that proof of something in the way of progress? A hint? A bread crumb?
OK. It's a bread crumb.
One national site predicts that eventually the sides will settle on a two-year, $64 million deal for Hendrickson. And while we agree that a short-term deal would seem to be a fine compromise. ... we bet the Bengals would like to avoid a long-term commitment while Hendrickson and would be reluctant to go that far above that $30 mil APY.
But they are apparently talking. And Trey is here. So maybe Hendrickson's deep-rooted frustrations can be massaged in time to keep him here, for camp and beyond.