Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - PERMISSION GRANTED | Cincinnati Bengals letting Trey Hendrickson explore the trade market

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Trey Hendrickson has been asking the Cincinnati Bengals to redo his contract for years, and finally has been given permission by the team to explore his trade market. Jake Liscow is joined by Joe Goodberry to break down what appears to be a failure from the Bengals' front office in its offseason mission to get long-term deals done with its stars, what trade compensation might look like, and how the Bengals are in for a steep price to replace Hendrickson's production as they need to rebuild a defensive line from the bottom.Join the Locked On Bengals Insider Community! https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengalsFind and follow Locked On Bengals on your favorite podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-bengals-daily-podcast-on-the-cincinnati-bengals/id1159723162Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AObc0lh0WmQl5fJVgtajsGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbG9ja2Vkb25iZW5nYWxz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwio_sXtj8nuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-bengalsSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!ChewyChewy has everything you need to keep your pet happy and healthy. And right now you can save $20 on your first order and get free shipping by Clicking this link: https://prf.hn/click/camref:1011l3Huc8/creativeref:1011l164602FanDuelRight now, new FanDuel customers can get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Bonus Bets if your first FIVE DOLLAR bet wins!Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Cincinnati Bengals had sold us on an offseason plan. The foundation of that plan was getting long-term deals done for their stars. One prong of that plan has now failed. Trey Hendrickson granted permission to seek a treat. You are locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Locked on Bengals podcast. host, Jake Luscoe, joined today by Joe Goodberry from Bengals on the Brain presented by

First Star Logistics. And of course, you can find him on Twitter at Joe Goodberry, where he is full of great Bengals insights and has a subscriber option available for you there, where you can get even more of his unique brand of Bengals analysis. This is Lockdown Bengals, part of the lockdown podcast that we're covering your team every day on YouTube and everywhere you get your podcasts. And the everydayers, well, you're in for a bit of a bit of. a shock today if you have avoided social media between the time the news came out and we got around

to recording this podcast. And Trey Hendrickson granted permission to seek a trade, which is shocking for a number of reasons, Joe. And we had an entire episode filmed. We were about two minutes away from finishing recording an episode on free agency and the way the Bengals could patch holes and go about attacking things. And that all kind of gets blown up when this news breaks, Trey Hendrickson was in Cincinnati on Thursday, met with Bengals leadership, and

weirdly gets permission to seek a trade. This is a shock because it is not what we were sold, both publicly and privately. I think both of us were expecting this to eventually be addressed by Bengals' leadership.

But perhaps it was a Max Crosby deal, perhaps they were just always too far apart and the gap was unbridgeable and instead the Bengals have for the first time that I can remember granted their extremely high-profile player permission to actually seek a trade jail. Yeah, that's what it means. I think people need to be sure they're taking it and consuming that report that way, that the Bengals have granted tray permission.

The report was that he flew to Cincinnati. He met face-to-face with front office and said, if we're not going to deal done, can I seek a trade? And they said, yes, you can. And what that means is he can now, he and his agent can now talk and speak with other teams about a contract extension. And then if they can come close to that, that team will call the Bengals. And if some of this happens simultaneously, I'm sure, and figure out what compensation that'll be. And we'll probably discuss that as well, what the compensation, what the plan is, what that entails, what the plan is moving forward. How do you fix it when the defense, looks as barren as it does, but for a moment here, I find this very depressing. I find it a bit upsetting. You know, Trey Anderson is a fan favorite. He's a great player. He's one of their best three players, clearly.

He was up for a defensive player of the year, all pro season. He's been in the Pro Bowl four straight years. He's the best free agent they have ever signed. And here we are on the doorstep of free agency. That doesn't make me feel good about it when your offseason plan, and the messaging is we're going to extend these three. And whether that's publicly, whether it's back channels, we have all heard similarly. They plan on extending these three and keeping the core together and then building from there because they have plenty of space to do both, right?

We've done shows on this, Jake. You can extend these guys and you can bring in free agents to fill out the roster. We'll now throw that in the trash and let's start over and not just start over with the offseason plan. Start over with the entire defense. It looks terrible on paper. But your messaging, now I'm not. I'm concerned about the deals with Higgins and Chase. And when I probably come back to normal and wake up tomorrow, I'd probably be like,

yeah, they'll still get deals done with those guys. I know that. But if I can play in my emotions a little bit and think about the Ari Merov report from the day before and how they weren't close, he was saying, they're not close. And he wants $32 million and that they're more open now to trading him than ever. You remember he ended with that little part there, which I kind of brushed off. But here we are a day later. and the Bengals are saying, yes, we are open to trading you, Trey Hendrickson.

Yeah, it's a sharp turn from everything that we heard coming out of the combine, from public and private remarks, like I said, where the Bengals did not seem interested in trading Trey Hendrickson. But whatever he said to them today in Paycor Stadium, to get them to approve the trade request and give him permission to seek a trade, good for them, I guess, in respecting the play. players wishes if a deal wasn't going to get done, but shame on them more than that for not being able to follow through on a plan, we've talked about why it made sense to extend Trey Hendrickson.

Guys that have that level of performance for that many consecutive years, regardless of being age 30, are not going to fall off a cliff more often than not. You never know in the NFL, there can always be a cataclysmic injury, but typically you see a gradual decline for players of that caliber that hit age 30. And there are examples of players that. that have played well into their 30s when they're coming off a season like Trey Hendrickson is. And so I really wonder what the gap was. I wonder what Trey was asking for if it wasn't that $32 to $33 million range where the Bengals were in relation to that. What was the gap they weren't willing to bridge?

Is it another million or two or $3 situation where the Bengals aren't closing a narrow gap? Was it guarantees? Was it years? This is an agent and obviously a player that the Bengals. angles have had deals with in the past, was it the max Crosby contract? Was it as simple as Crosby got X amount of dollars, even though there's only a couple of guarantees in their year two guaranteed, no signing bonus there? Still a $10 million raise in 2025, but not necessarily the cash flow you would anticipate from seeing that deal initially. Like that's a get out of jail

free card for the Raiders at the back end of that deal if he does start to deteriorate and if he does fall off a cliff. So I don't know, hard for me to wrap my head around where this broke down exactly. Maybe it was just as simple as Trey's asking price went up to $34 million and the Bengals weren't willing to break 30. Maybe it was just that they weren't willing to start that with number with a three when Trey Henderson was over 30 years old himself. Now, you mentioned the T and Jammar side of things here as well, Joe, as the Bengals front offices lost a ton of credibility, although I would say that from Mobile and Duke Tobin's comments at the at the at the senior bowl through his comments of the combine, Trey did have a different tenor around the conversations than T and Trey.

It was always a little bit different. It wasn't different enough for me to think that it was like, yeah, this is going to the trade route, but it was different. And a lot of fans are calling us naive for ever believing that at this point, Joe. Social media is full of that right now. But Diana Ruscini's report on this is that the Bengals are still working on Jamar and T. And I think it was Jordan Schultz not arguing with the in Rappaport in a Starbucks instead saying that Tray was the odd man out. And because they're prioritizing Jamar and T, they did not get it done with T. But again, I don't understand where the math is coming from here for the Bengals.

How are you spending the money you would have spent on Trey Hendrickson this year better elsewhere? And so while there are certainly positive outcomes here, maybe they can get great trade compensation. Maybe they can use that pick to acquire their next Carlos Dunlott. Maybe they can go get a great free agent player to help them rebuild this defensive line from ground zero, which is where it is now without Trey Hendrickson. Right now, it is the first. failure of the 2025 off season. They had a plan.

They did not execute that plan. And as a result, they now have to pivot to plan B and hope that plan B works. And after last offseason, Joe, that is a whole lot of offseason failures lately. You can even go back two years in off seasons, really,

and say, how are you expecting to compete when these are the moves you make? And that's exactly what I was thinking, as you were saying. And I was like, actually, let's go back to Jesse Bates, right? How many failures can we have?

How many can we stomach? Jake, I'm tired. I don't know if you're feeling like this is, well, let's, we're trying to build towards something. We can't just keep spinning our wheels. We can't keep replacing good players and finding out, you know what, it's actually hard to replace good players. And another obstacle that the Bengals seem to be unable to get over is that player

approaching 30 years old, right? whether it was DJ Reader, Andrew Whitworth was far past 30, but there's been players in their past, and even free agents that they didn't talk to because the guy was a little bit too old, a little bit older than they want, and they get to this mark and they go, yeah, we're just, you know, we can't pay you, we don't want to pay you,

we don't feel the values there, whatever the conversation was, I'm speculating. I feel like I need to retweet that Andrew Whitworth, a podcast episode where he's talking about how they just, we value here, and that's it. People have. It's out there. It makes sense because that was the feeling I got from Trey Hendrickson's camp when he had an extension two years ago

and then we couldn't get an extension last year and asked for a trade last year. It's two years in a row, Trey Anderson asked for a trade. Bengals last year, messaging was completely different. We're not trading Trey. We still believe in Trey. We think he's great. He went and had a great year. This time right away, Freedancy hasn't even begun yet.

League year hasn't even begun yet. And it's the report. Bengals will let Trey seek a trade. It's deflating. I find it very, very, very hard. They need a T. Higgin signing coming very soon here to win the fan base back, I think. To start to win the fan base back is what I would say there. I think that it's going to be a long and dark off season for the Bengals until they start to show things that are seriously going in the other direction.

I'll give you my emotional thoughts here about things as you're saying you're disappointed and deflated. And then we'll talk about potential compensation, the financial impact. here and what the cost will be to replace Stray Hendricks and how they failed to do so preemptively coming up next. This episode of Blackdown Bengals is sponsored by Fandul, America's number

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betting partner of the NBA. Joe wanted to give my quick emotional state or that kind of reaction from a fan perspective. But before we dive back into some of the analysis end of this, I've called it a failure. So I think my opinion here is pretty clear. I think that this is making life harder for the Bengals. I called rebuilding the defensive line from Ground Zero. Extremely disappointing. And I think I mentioned earlier in the show a bit shocking to me based on everything that we had heard, like I said, privately and publicly. And I worry about the ripple effects here. I don't really understand And still, what the plan is here if the plan starts and you're starting your 20, 25 offseason with trading trade Hendricks. And now maybe you go swing an awesome trade.

Maybe compensation is better than we could have possibly expected it to be. Maybe they get a player and a pick and that player can be an instant starter for you and it blows us away. And we'll talk about compensation here in just a second. but very disappointing. And I already thought this offseason was going to be hard. But again, when you look at the history of the last couple of years, you got Orlando Brown, great. He's a good player.

And then there's Nick Scott, Irv Smith, Sydney Jones, and a whole bunch of your own retreads at the bottom of the roster in 2023. You lose Joe Burrow that year to an injury. And then Gino Stone, Trent Brown, Sheldon, Rankin, Z. Moss, Von Bell, some of your own retreads, the bottom of the roster, Mike Keseki, your big success story last year. And he's, maybe he's back now. Maybe this gives them the money to bring Mike Keseki back. They had the money. As I think this. But for a team with Joe Burrow in the kind of season he's coming off of and what he's proven to be in the NFL,

I asked a question, I would say, a month or so ago, if not now, when for this team? and at this point, it sure as heck feels like the answer is just never. Never. Never. If not now, never. I think feels that that's how I feel. That's my feelings. That's my emotional state.

Three minutes on it there for you. This is the third off season. We're probably calling it the most important off season in Bengals history, right? Because they keep failing. Yes. Because they're not getting over the hump. They're not even getting to the hump lately. They're getting worse, progressively worse, since 2022.

do. And I just don't see the path to having this defense be better. And it was bad last year. Like, L. Golden better work some magic. Not only that, but you need good compensation for Trey Hendrickson. I just saw a question on Twitter. What would make this a win at the end? Getting a good pick for Trey, turning that pick into a hit, taking that money in free agency and turning that into a hit. You might pull off even or a little bit better than that. Because Trey's really productive, right, as a pass rusher. I need to replace 17 sacks and 85 pressures.

That's a lot. You know, if I can split eight sacks between two guys and 40 pressures, you found two good players. But do you have a stud? You don't. And a lot of teams, when I'm watching the playoffs, they don't have that stud. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter who you got. You got a bunch of B-level players on their D-line. Congratulations. You better need eight of them to actually make a difference. because that one guy creates so much for so many players that how does this make you better? We just had to scrap an episode right where we talked about free agency and we were like, there's no tier one guys that are even worth it. There's nobody here.

Milton Williams is a tier one. He's at five sacks at best. Like, you're going to miss the production. Even if you took Tray's money and put it on Milton Williams, well, you need to find another 35 pressures and another 12 sacks on your defense or else you're worse, you know, if you're just replacing production. It is not easy. The path is not simple. The replacement cost is high, and it is super risky.

When we look at the recent history of free agency and the recent history of the draft on the defensive side for the Bengals, it stinks. And if you're telling me, that's our, oh, we'll just do this again and hope to get lucky. Oh, my gosh, that's not good. The Bengals have tried to anticipate these sorts of things. You talk about the draft failures. they have drafted Miles Murphy and Joseph Osai on the defensive line and Zach Carter on the defensive line and two defensive tackles last year to try to add to this defense. They've drafted corners.

They've drafted three linebackers a few years ago and we're well, well in the history for that one, but which defensive players have hit, and that's why we're at this point where we're talking about 30-year-old Trey Hendrickson is such a vital piece of this defensive. Miles Murphy had developed. the way Rashon Gary developed, we're probably on board for trading Trey Hendrickson right now instead of giving him

a raise and using that money and draft asset to add elsewhere on this team. But since they haven't had development from these guys the way we would have hoped to have seen it, now Al Golden's task is to get that development without the one stud you had, without the one horse that you could rely

on on that defense. And so it does get much harder. The Bengals well saved $16 million in cap space. So they'll also save $16 million in cash. That is a lot more. It's about a $2.7 million dead hit, which is nothing, but does take them up to about $10 million in dead cap space, which Duke Tobin was just so proud of how little dead money they had.

They can spend that money on other players. They will spend that money in other players if they do indeed. Go ahead with the trade for trade Hendricks. And let's talk realistic compensation, Joe. Let's talk about the replacement costs. Let's talk about their failures in the draft that have left them in this spot. And what the Bengals could realistically hope for here. As like I said, I think you're now rebuilding a defense.

It was already one of the worst in the league from a worse starting point than it needed to be. We'll finish the show that has gone depressingly. down a dark path here coming up next. As you're talking trade compensation, Joe, let's say pie in the sky scenario here. Washington commanders listed as a team that is interested in Tray Hendrickson and the initial reports. Say Washington is willing to cough up a first round pick.

I think there is about a 1% chance of that happening. That might even be too high because the team that acquires Ray Hendrickson is going to have to pay him a lot of money. That contract comes with a cost in terms of trade. trade value. So I do think it will be hard. I also think it's a great edge class and there are some other edge players that might be available for trade. Maybe trade is the only one that ends up getting traded, but there are a whole bunch of edge guys that have contracts that have statuses and flux. But say they get a first round pick and we take this pie in the sky situation. Say they can

draft Mike Green. Say they can come back with that first round pick at the end of the first round and add the interior run defender they so desperately need, say is Kenneth Grant, Tileak Williams, a guy like that. Say they sign Chase Young with the money they saved on Trey Hendrickson. Now you got Mike Green in the stable with Miles Murphy and some additional playing time, maybe more on the right side of the defensive line. You got a versatile piece who has some pedigree and some NFL experience in Chase Young can be a solid defender at worst for you,

and you've added a potential nose tackle. I still don't know if that's enough. I mean, that's pretty good, I think. Like, that's, I think, the best you could hope for, but you're still relying on a couple of rookies there, and those are unknowns, and you're hoping that Chase Young can be a guy for you. And that's a scenario that I think is extremely unlikely

to come to fruition in the first place. Yeah, it's almost the best case scenario. I do think, you know, we will spend some time you're looking at some of the free agent edges because now they have to sign one. They don't have a choice. You have to go get one because you've got a draft one already. We were already projecting them to draft the defensive end at some point. Now you need a draft one and sign one, which is part of the replacement cost that I think gets glossed over at times.

We talk about it. We're aware of it. But when you create a hole and then have to use your draft pick on that hole, you've run away that draft pick unless that guy becomes a superstar for you. but it unnecessarily is going to a position that needed to go to so many other spots to begin with. Now, in this scenario, we already needed a D&, the Bengals needed one. So maybe it's, but now maybe you need to draft two pass rushers, right? There's a scenario there where you get one in the first round and you get one in the third or fourth round. They've drafted multiple D-Ns before in a draft class.

I could see now that happening for sure. So replacement cost is high and it's risky. You're going to spend dollars, you're going to spend signing bonus money, guaranteed money on free agents. you're going to now spend premium picks and maybe multiple picks. I think if I was looking like a best case compensation, because I live in Buffalo, I hear that they are not as happy with Gregory Rousseau, former first round pick.

He's going into his fifth year. That fifth year option money is big. He needs an extension, and they don't know if he's extension-worthy, but he's a left defensive end that's big and can play the run. It would fit the Bengals otherwise. Maybe you get a pick in Gregory Rousseau. They need a pass rusher.

Bengals need a defender that can play. the left defensive end when Miles Murphy plays right defensive end. And then you could also dip in a free agency. But player for player, because I'm reading my comments, which is why I wanted to bring up what would be a player for player type trade? They rarely happen. Player for player trades rarely happen in the NFL. It is something that I would not bank on.

I'm sitting here saying, I think a second round pick is what you end up with. And I can't imagine that that's enough to replace Trey Hendricks in on its own, which it isn't, of course. No, they're going to need to spend in free agency and they're going to get worse. And even that trade you outlined for Gregory Rousseau, you're getting worse and you're paying more than Trey was scheduled to make. Now, Trey would have gotten a raise, but the fifth year option for a defensive end is going to be more than Trey was scheduled to make in 2025. As you know, you extend them though and reduce the cap hit, right? The cap hit, sure, but the cash then goes up.

Right. So, I mean, you're still paying more. And cash is definitely a bigger problem for the Bengals this off season than cap space. and I think that that is still true with the Trey Hendrickson potential trade. The other scenario to discuss here as we will get to some of the free agent edge guys now that

I mean, is it just one or is it two at this point? Because before we thought it was probably one in the episode that we had to scrap, we thought, yeah, Eddress are pretty likely here. And maybe they also draft one. But now with what's going to be on the roster?

Miles Murphy? I mean, that's it. maybe you bring camp sample back you got cedric johnson too but you're not relying on any of those guys so the one other thing to to explore before we get into that is a lot of folks or maybe some folks at least have considered that this could be a staffer situation i've seen a number of people talk about that where there's permission to seek a trade maybe they don't find the kind of value they're looking for when they're exploring those possibilities with other teams i find that a little bit hard to believe, but maybe the market isn't quite what he thinks it would be.

And the offers he's getting are similar to what the offers are that the Bengals are making. And maybe it turns out that Trey and his agent are, in fact, being unreasonable compared to his market. Now, I want to reiterate. I doubt that, but it is possible. The other thing here is, what if the Bengals just say? Second round pick? No, thanks. Trey's under contract.

What happens then? Is he willing to sit out? Is he willing to? And do you want to deal with? I mean, I don't want to deal with that again. I already don't want to deal with that. He's retired last year, right? Did he?

I thought Zach Taylor and Trey had a conversation about, you know, we need you, we want you, we believe in you, all those things because he was threatening to retire. That may be something I wasn't supposed to say, but not let me think about it. That happens sometimes, guys. Well, then it would probably be back on the table this year if that did indeed happen last year. So this idea that, you know, he's under contract and. I don't know how much that really helps the Bengals here. I agree.

And, you know, if I can pull up the defensive end spreadsheet while we're here and looking at it, it's a better at the top class than the defensive tackle class because they're going to have to spend on pre-agency defensive tackle as well. Now maybe the premium goes to D-Ns, but at the top of the list, especially on our rankings and spreadsheet, we do Jake every year going back to 2020, right? Josh Sweat is at the top. He's been a very productive player for the Eagles. could probably, he's projected to get in the $20 to $25 million range. PFF has him as a $33 million guaranteed.

It would be a big signing for the Bengals. They'd be the most guaranteed money they've ever given to anybody outside of Joe Burrow until they get to Higgins and Chase. We'll see how that deal goes. But are they willing to spend on a Josh sweat who's 28 years old? So what are you going to get one to two years before you feel like you're in the same exact situation? Does he want to deal with that?

The young guys that are in the range of the 26-year-olds, you're looking at Chase Young, which I think makes a lot of sense for them. Dio Adi Ingbo, which is not actually an edge bender, pass rusher, more of a left defense van, big guy that can also kick inside. Barron Browning, more of a smaller, outside linebacker, edge pass rusher, 26 years old. We have those guys that are a borderline tier three free agents. Then you've got the young guys that kind of scare me a little bit.

One, I like Joseph Osai. He's still 25. I still think there's some upside there. They haven't developed them. If I'm Osai, I want to go somewhere else and see if someone else can get me to where I need to be because he was a very strong, prospect. The other end, 25-year-old Aziz O'Dullari, I'm nervous. Like, for a team that doesn't seem like they use a lot of advanced data and doesn't dig into that stuff very often. This is a guy you can

look at the stat sheet and go, hey, you can get you seven sacks. Man, they are clean-up sacks. He's not winning as a pass rusher. If they go throw 15 million a year at him, I'm going to die inside just a little bit. Even though I like him, I think 25, there's still some, there's still some upside there, but you cannot go throw big bunny at Aziz O'Dullery. He's shown some improvement as a pass rusher in terms of win rate and true past situations, which are the straight dropback kind of things, third downs, think third and ten situations where you really want your pass rushers to win. He's shown some improvement there, but he's still probably average in that area.

$15 million a year there would kill me more than a little bit inside, I think. That's kind of the nightmare move for me. And look, we've been wrong about some of these things before. sometimes the Bengals can get it right. Trey Hendrickson is a great example in the past of them getting a great value. You called it the best free agent signing in team history, and it's hard to argue with that. But now they've left themselves in this spot where they are desperate to fill that void

because they've been unable to do it in the draft, and part of the way they're going to have to do it is by drafting better. And the cold streak they're on drafting defensive players is blame Louana Rimo's staff, if you want is problematic. And like I said earlier, Al Golden's task to develop guys, develop these young guys, and whatever rookies are coming to him this year, gets that much harder, in my opinion, if they do, in fact, find an eventual trade partner for Trey Hendrickson, which at this point, if I would have thought before today, it was 90% that Trey Hendrickson would be a Bengal in 2025.

now we're at 1%. Right? Like this is trade permission from the Bengals. Are you kidding me? That's pretty unprecedented stuff. And for them to get to this point, I assume that just means that they're so far away that they recognize it's impossible

and they're just trying to recoup whatever they can. And honestly, second round pick does feel pretty best case. I don't know if it's even there. I mean, look at some of the trade compensation for veterans that are being traded right now. Christian Kirk traded while we're recording this podcast. Obviously a very, very different tier of player,

but for a seventh round pick. Joe Tuny traded for, what was it, a fourth round pick? Next year, fourth. Yeah, a future fourth. So hard to imagine this trade compensation being something that would appease the Bengals, and who knows how ugly that gets if they play real stubborn with trade compensation here. And it's certainly hard to imagine a feeling commensurate with what you would expect for a fan perspective,

if you're watching Trey Hendrickson walk, and on top of that, how quickly does it get done? Is this something that happens in the next week or less so that they know exactly where they stand in free agency? Or is this something that drags out into the draft into after the draft, and you have to deal with this cap hit that you're carrying for a player

that's no longer going to be on the team, and you don't know what the compensation is going to be, you don't know if you're going to get the pick this year. Man, a brutal start to the off season, I would say, Joe. And one where they badly needed a win and needed this off season to really turn around the last couple of years where they've fallen well short of expectations with Joe Burrow on the second contract. But instead we just get more evidence that the Bengals do not know how to build a team with a quarterback on his second contract.

It's not ideal. It's not the situation we wanted to be in. We wanted to be. I wanted to make a video right before or the day of maybe Monday before free agency kicks off. And I was already playing in my content ahead. And I'm going to go, you know, I make a video. The Bengals need to win the off season because they never win the off season. They do well in the off seasons once in a while.

But, you know, we always talk about like the Jets or the Eagles or the Jaguars or the Browns, winning the offseason, making all these signings. And I think just keeping your own and extending their big three, they would have been applauded in a way they've never been before. now doesn't make the roster any better? No, of course it doesn't. But winning the offseason, having good vibes, the vibes were off last year, winning the vibes, winning the off season, and then getting some pre-agents in here as other analysts and national people and fans go, where do they have the money? Have they ever said that about the Bengals in a positive way?

When these other teams are signing these players, people go, where did they, how do they still have money? I thought they were over the cap. The Bengals have never been close to that. They needed to win an off season. So I guess I'm doing the content now. cram it into a one and a half minute segment of it. They've never been in a situation where other fans go, how did they also get Josh sweat? And I don't expect that, but these players, how did you also sign them?

They were in position to win an offseason by doing the expected moves that any franchise would have made. And yet, here we are instead, talking about scraps and free agency that we hope could be good. And scrapping entire podcast to do so. We'll be back here on lockdown Bengals. I'll be back with James Rupin at the latest on Sunday before the legal negotiating window opens if something happens between now and then that we need to react to. It is an emergency podcast season here on lockdown Bengals.

Until then, you can find Joe Bengals on the brain, the first star logistics media group on YouTube on Twitter at Joe Goebbeary for all of his excellent insights as we try to navigate an off season now that has already gone off the rails at its first. first juncture. Until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. And have a good one.