If you’ve heard this before, bear with me: Bengalis are notoriously frugal. It’s been another tight off-season for the NFL’s budget-conscious team, highlighted by standout defensive end Trey Hendrickson skipping minicamps on Tuesday.
Source: NFL Sack leader Trey Hendrickson hasn’t received the new contract he wanted and hasn’t attended the Bengals’ mandatory minicamp. pic.twitter.com/jsnqvt3qsc
– Adam Schefter (@adamschefter) June 10, 2025
Hendrickson led the league last season with 17.5 sacks and has been looking for a new deal, especially given his low earnings throughout his career. A third-round pick from New Orleans, he joined Cincinnati in 2021 with a four-year contract worth $60 million. After restructuring in 2023, he still didn’t make it into the top five for defensive salaries, landing as the ninth highest paid defensive end in 2025, despite ranking first and second in sacks in consecutive years.
Now, on one hand, you might get Cincinnati’s hesitance to shell out big bucks for a 30-year-old defensive player. But then again, doesn’t it just feel… cheap?
The Bengals have over $27 million in available cap space, which includes $201 million already committed to Hendrickson. It’s not difficult to pay him what he’s worth while staying under the cap, but the lack of clarity from the team suggests they’re unwilling to offer anything substantial. And it’s not just Hendrickson who’s absent from mini-camps; they also haven’t signed their first-round pick.
This morning, ahead of mandatory minicamp, Bengals’ contract news continues.
The Bengals hadn’t signed Shemar Stewart by this morning, so the newcomers won’t practice, sources say.
Neither Trey Hendrickson nor Shemar Stewart practiced.– Kelsey Conway (@kelsylconway) June 10, 2025
Signing a rookie should be straightforward, but Cincinnati complicates things by trying to introduce a new clause in Stewart’s contract that could allow future guaranteed money to be voided under certain conditions. This essentially amounts to a breach of contract. Moreover, the Bengals have a history of offering less favorable terms than market standards when it comes to rookie bonuses, which only compounds the issue since they don’t follow trends seen in other recent contracts.
To summarize:
- The Bengals don’t want to offer Stewart a league-standard signing bonus.
- They prefer Stewart to accept more restrictive terms.
- They aim to ensure Stewart has no opportunity to contest the deal later.
In even simpler terms: they’re pretty tight-fisted.
Cincinnati seems intent on setting a trend where rookie contracts become more disadvantageous for newcomers, while simultaneously refusing to compensate their standout players appropriately.
Interestingly, owner Mike Brown is worth $3.9 billion.
