It didn't have to be this way for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Let it be known first and foremost that the problem of paying Tee Higgins, Ja'Marr Chase, and Trey Hendrickson all at once could've easily been solved by simply paying the first guy two years ago, the second guy last year, and the third guy a week ago.

But even in the reality we live in right now, orchestrating all three at once was going to be challenging, but not impossible. The Bengals landed on impossible by letting Hendrickson seek a trade while they hammer home deals for the two wide receivers.

I have many problems with this. For one, it obviously makes it significantly harder for the Bengals to field a competent defense if the only star of the unit is wearing another uniform this year and beyond. Hendrickson has shown no signs of slowing down and should remain a great player for the next two years at minimum. A three-year extension paying him market value would've ensured the team sees his prime finish out and could easily get out before the last year if the fall off was imminent.

A larger problem I have is the reluctancy to pay real money to an elite player, again. The Bengals have been down this road with Jessie Bates III, Andrew Whitworth, Kevin Zeitler, and other big names who went on to be great outside of Cincinnati while being paid fairly. Replacing those players has never ended in a success story before, and it's unlikely to happen now with an All-Pro now walking out the door. Whatever Day 2 pick and pocket change they could get in return is but a lottery ticket in the grand scheme of replacing his production.

The biggest problem I have, the one that compels me to write all of this, is that the Bengals had an opportunity to dispel a national narrative by prioritizing and paying Hendrickson along with Higgins and Chase. The chips could've been moved to the middle of the table. They folded instead, and no one outside of Cincinnati is surprised.

Bengals are proving the NFL right, and it's a damn shame

When reports surfaced that the Bengals planned on rewarding all three of the elite players Joe Burrow wanted them to pay, the general reaction around the league was not an affirming one. Doubt and trepidation were the main emotions. 

Doubt that the Bengals not only could negotiate three major deals, but had the capital to do so in the first place.

Doubt that should've been unfounded.

The Bengals have an immense amount of actual cash to spend this offseason. Not in a hopeful way, but in a historically accurate way. There was enough cash for the Bengals to pay their own best players while also filling roster holes around them in free agency. They wouldn't even need to structure the deals in ways they've never done before. 

This was lost on the national media due to widespread ignorance of how salary cap accounting actually works. Fitting three contracts worth $30 million a year or more??? Not possible!

Not true. Not if you did the math.

Here's what the Bengals' cap situation could look like if they head into free agency with high-end projections for their stars. No void years.
– $40M APY 4-year extension for Ja'Marr Chase
– $30M APY 2-year extension for Hendrickson
– $30M APY 3-year contract for Tee Higgins… pic.twitter.com/CePhbWgvnU

— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) February 19, 2025

The path was there. The Bengals appeared confident when plugging in the coordinates on their GPS. They took one step down it and got cold feet.

Not because they couldn't afford it, but because they didn't want to pay Hendrickson what he's worth. 

That's always been the holdup for them. It's never a lack of resources, whether it be actual people on staff or money in the vault. The Bengals stick a price on a player and that price basically doesn't move. Their unwillingness to value their own great players like the rest of the league has done numerous times remains their biggest weakness as an organization. 

The Bengals aren't paying Hendrickson because they're paying the receivers. They aren't paying him because they don't want to. Period. 

And hey, I recognize that plenty of people think it's a smart move. Saving money on one player from a bad defense gives you more money to rebuild the rest of the unit. I understand that he's already 30 years old and predicting when injuries spark a sharp falloff is tremendously tough to do.

All of that is fine reasoning in a vacuum. There are still paths for the Bengals to be competitive in 2025 and beyond.

But the Bengals didn't just grant permission for a trade. They granted validation for talking heads around the country. 

And that will last for as long as they allow it to last.

A trade for Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson has Brad Holmes and the Lions written all over it, here’s the proposal

Welp, a crazy March in the NFL just got a little more crazy. The Cincinnati Bengals, a team that has been known to be the most headstrong franchise in the league when it comes to trades, has finally allowed a player to seek a trade.  It just so happens that the player fits everything the […]