Duke Tobin gives an important hint about his plans for the Bengals following the latest Trey Hendrickson update
Cincinnati has another week to potentially place the franchise tag on DE Trey Hendrickson.
Cincinnati Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin declined to say during his 2026 NFL Scouting Combine presser if the Bengals will place the franchise tag on defensive end Trey Hendrickson.
“I don’t throw anything on or off the table with Trey,” Tobin said Tuesday in Indianapolis. “We’re excited about attacking this offseason. We have resources to attack the offseason in a big way, and we want to do that. In terms of how we’re going to do that, how we’re going to allocate our resources, who is it going to be on our own free agents? What’s our intentions there? I’m not going to get into that right here. It’s just not the time to announce that to the rest of the league.”
Hendrickson is a topic of conversation for good reason. He’s the consensus top defensive free agent set to hit the open market next month. He’s the No. 2 overall player in A to Z Sports’ top 100 free agents. Whether or not he’ll be available is on the minds of plenty from around the league.
“Trey’s been a great player for us,” Tobin said. “He didn’t have the year he wanted this year. We didn’t have the year we wanted this year. Those are factors, and we’ll see where we go from there. But in terms of how we’re going to deploy the tag, if we are going to that’s not something I’m going to talk about here.”
The Bengals are expected to have conversations about potentially trading Hendrickson in the event they use the tag on him. Tobin clearly didn’t want to publicize any of those talks Tuesday, but he did re-emphasize a point he made back in January, and it says a lot about Hendrickson’s future.
Duke Tobin is still very thirsty for pass rushers
Tobin made it a point of emphasis during his end-of-season press conference in January that he wants Cincinnati to bolster its defensive line this offseason, specifically in the pass rush department.
“Pass rush is king, and you always need to be layering in pass rusher,” Tobin said on Jan. 9. “It can develop from within your team, and I think we’ve seen some of that start to develop from within our team, and then I think we need to find some from external sources as well.”
The Seattle Seahawks validated Tobin’s desire about a month later in Super Bowl LX, sacking New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye six times on their way to hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. When asked about Seattle’s defense, Tobin affirmed emulating the champions’ pass rush depth is a priority, and gave a shout to Seahawks general manager John Schneider.
“Yeah, Seattle did a nice job, and they had a very good front, and they had a physical front,” Tobin said at the Combine. “They had a wave of guys that kept coming through. And that’s something every team wants. You ask anybody in my position with any of the other teams, they want that defensive line. They want the wave, and we would like to get to the point where we have a couple different groups we can deploy in there and keep them fresh and really get after the passer. And you got to stop the run in order to get after the passer. And it was impressive to see Seattle’s D line play, and they had a great scheme. And congrats to them. John [Schneider]’s a good friend of mine.”
What this means for the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson
The best way to build a deep pass rush is by throwing several new players at the group, and that takes cash and salary cap space. Tagging Hendrickson with the intent of keeping him on the tag derails that entirely as it would cost $30.2 million in both cash and cap space to execute that.
Yes, the Bengals could clear cap space by restructuring Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase’s contracts, but the franchise has never pulled that lever before with any of their players. Expecting to happen now isn’t productive.
Tobin didn’t want to say definitively what’s happening with Hendrickson, and that’s good to keep the door open for a potential tag-and-trade scenario. In order for his vision of a Seattle-like pass rush to be formed under his direction, the defense is going to need a lot more than just Hendrickson leading the charge. He’s alluding to a d-line built with the strength of numbers instead of having the former All-Pro make it top heavy.
In short, Hendrickson is not sticking around with the Bengals. He’ll be tagged and traded, or just allowed to sign a deal with another team in free agency. History points to the latter happening, but the former can still go down if Tobin and Co. exercise the tag within the next week.
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