Cincinnati Bengals star pass rusher Trey Hendrickson told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that he will not be reporting to training camp, which is scheduled to start tomorrow. Hendrickson is at present in Jacksonville, Florida, after he acquired two contract presents from the Bengals that didn’t comprise “the ensures previous the primary 12 months he was in search of,” defined The Athletic’s Dianna Russini.
“No communication has taken place between my camp and the group post-draft. The presents previous to the draft didn’t mirror the imaginative and prescient we shared and had been promised final low season if I continued to play at a excessive stage,” wrote Hendrickson in a statement he provided to Adam Schefter two months ago. “Coaches are conscious of those previous conversations. Rather than utilizing collaboration to get us to a degree to carry me house to the workforce, THEY are now not speaking. I’ve been eagerly awaiting a decision of this example, however that’s laborious to do when there isn’t any dialogue and an evident lack of curiosity in reaching mutual targets.”
Yesterday, Bengals proprietor Mike Brown spoke with reporters on the workforce’s annual media luncheon. He stated that the group is not going to be buying and selling Hendrickson as a result of it plans on getting him signed quickly.
“We aren’t going to commerce Trey. We’re working to get Trey signed as we converse right here,” Brown clarified. “There are guys over within the workplace working to get that carried out. I believe it’ll get carried out. It is the best way Trey might be. We like Trey as an individual. He’s a great man. But relating to these negotiations – and we’ve been by way of a number of of them with him – he pushes laborious. He will get emotional. We by no means have a simple time of it, however there’s one factor that’s constant: it at all times will get carried out. And I believe this one will, however we’ll see. I’ve been confirmed fallacious earlier than, however I’m fairly assured that we’ll get there on the finish.”
Long-term extension talks between the #Bengals and star Trey Hendrickson broke down over assured cash earlier than camp… and Hendrickson has now indicated he left the state.
He simply posted this on Instagram. pic.twitter.com/Le2aKris0t
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 22, 2025
Duke Tobin, Cincinnati’s director of participant personnel, echoed Brown’s sentiments. Though he did say that Hendrickson shouldn’t be skipping coaching camp.
“Trey’s an necessary a part of our workforce. I’ve obtained tons of respect for him. He’s a terrific soccer participant,” Tobin said at the Bengals media luncheon. “He’s underneath contract. We anticipate all of our guys underneath contract to be right here. That’s simply the best way it’s. He’s a man that I’ve stated earlier than has earned a increase and an extension. I’d love to provide him one. We’re attempting to work one out… We wish to come to an settlement with him that satisfies him and suits with us.”
Either method, Mike Brown and Duke Tobin need Trey Hendrickson to be a long-term a part of this group.
“I need it carried out, and I believe – to be sincere – Trey desires it carried out, too,” Brown stated. “He’s a soccer participant. He’ll be highly-paid. He’ll make greater than you make, greater than I make. So, I don’t have a variety of sympathy for a way that’s, however he deserves a high-paying deal as a result of he’s carried out very properly.”
ESPN analyst Peter Schrager made an look on The Pat McAfee Show earlier at present to debate Hendrickson’s contract negotiations in addition to the continuing talks the Bengals are having with 2025 NFL Draft choose Shemar Stewart.
“When you’ve Trey Hendrickson and you then draft a defensive finish at seventeenth general, these are just about your high two defensive gamers going into the season so far as what you’ve and what you hope for… And to not have both as camp begins is a serious L,” Schrager said. “I don’t care the way you take a look at it, who wins this factor. To not have both a type of guys on the primary day of coaching camp is a large, enormous L for the workforce.”
EXCLUSIVE: Just spoke to Bengals go rusher Trey Hendrickson, who’s at present in Jacksonville, FL. For the final 30 days, he had been at his house in Cincinnati and coaching.
But as coaching camp approached, he and his spouse determined to go away.
They acquired two presents in a… pic.twitter.com/evlSdeWlpK
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) July 22, 2025
“They aren’t going to do what he desires on his timetable, they usually have made that clear,” Schrager added.
He additionally instructed Pat McAfee that he’s not a fan of how the Bengals have dealt with these negotiations. He argues that the harm being carried out by these contract talks undoes the great the workforce did earlier this low season after they prolonged huge receivers Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase.
“This is simply brutal. It’s brutal as a result of, for all the off season, I’ve been saying – on this present and on others – the priorities for Cincinnati had been Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins,” he stated. “When they obtained these offers carried out, they had been like, ‘We did it. Right followers? Like, we did it. We lastly did it. We broke the financial institution on two star gamers, and we’re good to go.’ Then this Trey Hendrickson factor has utterly taken any of the goodwill away from it. And then the Shamar Stewart factor comes out of left discipline if you begin placing in clauses that they’ve by no means carried out as a workforce earlier than. And that’s taken down the workforce. It places you proper again in the identical dialog you had been in when Carson Palmer was sad together with his contracts, and when these early 2000s groups that had been so good needed to be dismantled as a result of the workforce might need bungled the relationships.”
“I believe three years in the past, I started to ask for a long-term contract with assured cash, so these deadlines have form of simply all been a blur,” Hendrickson stated in April. “I’ve simply been searching quarterbacks, so at this level it’s what it’s. I don’t know if I can put a time stamp on it… I’d have been keen to signal three years in the past, two years in the past, and this 12 months. It was communicated with me that we might get one thing carried out this 12 months… I form of deal with it like a home now. Like, home values have gone up. It’s the price of residing, and in some methods, life continues to go ahead. I do know I’m a soccer participant. I’m coaching to be one of the best Trey Hendrickson I might be and nonetheless that appears and no matter workforce, we will deal with that.”
