Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson expressed his honest feelings on the contract holdout with his current team, the Cincinnati Bengals.
In a piece by The Athletic, Trey Hendrickson was honest about how he has been feeling regarding the progress of contract negotiations with the Bengals. According to the defensive end, he wanted to stay with the Bengals, but the circumstances have not been looking good.
“We were given two offers within a 24-hour period, and (neither) of them had the guarantees we were looking for,” Hendrickson said. “I wanted to be there, but there’s no way I would be able to sit there in the house and hear the practice whistles while also being a distraction. I don’t want to ruin the other 10 guy’s 2025 season on my contract language.”
As he went on, Hendrickson also stated that he is willing to take a pay cut to have a deal that would appease both ends.
“I was more than willing to take less in some ways in order to make a deal work to accommodate the presented needs,” he continued. “I verbalized to the Bengals that I wanted to be the captain, to lead a young defense. And once rookie Shemar Stewart gets back at camp, I want to pass along the knowledge that I have, just like Cam Jordan once did for me.”
Trey Hendrickson‘s contract negotiation is primarily due to his desire for a contract extension that aligns with the market value of his performance. As the NFL’s leading edge rusher, Hendrickson has been instrumental in the Bengals’ success, leading the league in sacks in 2024.
Bengals Owner Assures Trey Hendrickson Won’t Be Traded
Despite the contact holdout and vocal frustration from the side of Trey Hendrickson, Bengals’ front office has made it clear that they have no plans of trading him out of the team.
In a recent interview, Bengals majority owner Mike Brown gave fans the assurance that Hendrickson is not going anywhere.
“We are not going to trade Trey. We are working on getting it done,” Brown said. “We like Trey as a person, he’s a good guy, but when it comes to these negotiations, and we have been through a few of them with him, he pushes hard, he gets emotional. We’ve never had an easy time of it but there’s one thing that is consistent, it always gets done.”
#Bengals owner Mike Brown on Trey Hendrickson: pic.twitter.com/DftBLOXcps
— Kelsey Conway (@KelseyLConway) July 21, 2025
Trey Hendrickson has played four seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals, beginning in 2021 after signing a four-year, $60 million deal.
For more sports content:
Follow me on X at @ErnestLeo, and follow us at @WisconsinHeroics, @HardwoodHeroics and @GridironHeroics. You can also reach out to Ernest Hernandez via email at ernestleo@gmail.com. To read more of our articles and keep up to date on the latest sports news, click here!
Ernest also manages a YouTube account called Sports On Air with over 108 thousand subscribers while the Facebook counterpart boasts 184 thousand followers. The channel contains interviews predominantly from the Philippine Basketball Association. They can be reached at sportsonairph@gmail.com.
