The Cincinnati Bengals have just one more difficult task to accomplish at the negotiating table this offseason, and that's giving Trey Hendrickson the pay raise he deserves. 

Both sides coming together for one last major deal is the logical move to make. Hendrickson is likely to hold out during training camp if the team forces him to play on his current one-year, $16 million deal, which would be the exact kind of distraction Cincinnati is trying avoid during the lead up to the season after the last few years have featured several of similar disturbances. It's also unlikely that trading Hendrickson away will net the club with its preferred compensation in return.

This is why the Bengals are talking with Hendrickson again, but there seem to be a couple hurdles to overcome.

Why extending Hendrickson could now be complicated

For starters, offering Hendrickson a new deal on top of the $16 million he's set to earn this year is tricky. The Bengals may want to give him a multi-year extension with enough money to average $30 million or more per year over the course of the new years, but when factoring in that $16 million, the total average annual value (AAV) of the entire deal will be smaller than what Hendrickson is after. This is what Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team stated Tuesday morning on NFL Spotlight.

"I do think the Bengals would love to keep Trey Hendrickson, but it's not easy over here," Meirov said. "He does want a very significant contract. He has one year and $16 million left. Adding more money on top of that is not so simple in order to get the average up when including the old money. So a lot of moving parts when it comes to that."

Here's what this looks like in terms of numbers. If Hendrickson wants his AAV to be, let's say $32 million per year, then the Bengals would have to offer him a two-year, $80 million extension to his current one-year, $16 million deal to reach that. $96 million over three years equals $32 million per year.

$40 million per year in new money is probably not in the cards for the Bengals. That's Myles Garrett money, quite literally. 

Conversely, if the Bengals are comfortable offering a two-year, $60 million extension, then the AAV would only be just over $25 million per year over the course of three total years ($76 million over three years). That's well short from Hendrickson's perspective. 

The other hurdle potentially at play is guaranteed money, and this may've recently formed thanks to the contracts Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins just agreed to sign. Since both wide receivers are getting guarantees beyond the first year of their respective deals, Meirov reports that Hendrickson will want the same in his new deal.

"Tee Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase, they did get guarantees into year two, which is something the Bengals do not do historically unless you're a quarterback," Meirov said. "Because of that, Trey Hendrickson is looking for a new deal, he's also going to want to break precedent on his deal and also get guarantees into year two. So if the Bengals want to renegotiate with him, that part of it is going to make a difference as well." 

This shouldn't be an actual problem since Hendrickson is definitively worthy of guaranteed cash beyond just this season. The Bengals should be interested in having him on the roster through at least the 2026 season even if his play falls off a bit in 2025. He's been too good for too long to think it'll fall apart completely after one year. 

Luckily, there's a compromise that should work for both parties, but the Bengals will need to be the side who accepts it.

Bengals should offer Hendrickson a brand new contract instead of an extension

This is very simple. Instead of adding on new money and years to Hendrickson's current one-year deal, the Bengals should offer a completely new contract and terminate the current one. This would allow the Bengals to offer a deal that matches the AAV Hendrickson wants without having to go far above where they want to land in terms of new money.

Let's say this deal would be worth $91 million over three years with incentives to get to a maximum value of $96 million. That's a base value of $30.3 million per year with the chance to reach $32 million per year. Let's also just guarantee his cash for the first two years, which gives Hendrickson security through 2026, and the Bengals an out in 2027.

Hendrickson should jump at that those numbers and would be enticed to have any sort of future guarantees for the first time in his career. The original four-year, $60 million deal he signed back in 2021 only had a signing bonus in terms of guaranteed cash. The one-year extension he could play on this year is not guaranteed. 

This looks like a win-win for both sides should the Bengals be willing to add Hendrickson to the list of exceptions who can command future guarantees. What could prevent the club from doing this, however, is the idea of terminating the one-year extension they successfully negotiated back in 2023. Not only would they potentially have to pay Hendrickson more cash this year, they'd also have to eat $2.6 million in dead cap by terminating the deal.

Is that worth making Hendrickson happy and ensuring he doesn't become a distraction while the rest of the team is focused on avoiding a fourth consecutive slow start to the season? I'd say it is. This solution pays Hendrickson what he's worth without costing the Bengals too much in the short term, and gives them an out after two years if he does start to decline in 2026 when he's 31 going on 32 years old.   

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The Bengals can make this work. They got this far by getting Chase and Higgins taken care of, it's not going to hurt them by making their only great player on defense happy and comfortable for the duration of his prime years. Not when there's a logical solution that makes financial sense.

I do believe it's the best way to resolve this conflict before it reaches a point of greater contention.