What Trey Hendrickson is, and what he wasn’t for the 2024 Bengals

There’s an old tweet that recirculates and goes viral again every few months.

“There’s always someone on twitter arguing with no one. Saying stuff like ‘but I was told Steph Curry wasn’t a good shooter.’”

Evaluating the players who are the best at what they do in their sport can be a bit of a hamster wheel. They’re great. We all know that they’re great. But it’s never perfect, and there are times where you have to point out that player’s flaws. But you can’t go too far, or else you’re underrating an elite athlete.

This circle is what the Trey Hendrickson conversation has felt like so far this offseason.

He was the best pass rusher in the NFL in 2024. He felt like the only pass rusher on the Bengals. But he had flaws as well as a season that wasn’t as rosy as it looked on paper. Hendrickson is indispensable, but you can also make the case that the Bengals should trade him.

It’s complicated.

You can’t underestimate how much Hendrickson did for the Bengals pass rush in 2024. He led the NFL in just about every pass rush metric, including sacks, pressures, quick pressures and sack rate. He ranked third in quick pressure rate. The Bengals’ defense totaled 36 sacks last year, and Hendrickson was a part of half of them.

Even when the entire world knew that Hendrickson was the Bengals’ only real shot to get to the passer, he got the job done as well as anyone.

Bill Barnwell of ESPN shared a metric that counts sacks created for yourself plus the sacks you create for your teammates. Hendrickson created 26, which was nearly twice as many as the next-best player.

He’s a defensive player of the year candidate, and he carried the Bengals’ defense down the stretch to wins over the Cowboys and Steelers.

There should be a high standard for a player that’s this good. When you’re talking about making a 30-year-old one of the highest paid defensive linemen in the NFL, you have to pick them apart a bit.

Hendrickson’s 2024 season was far from perfect.

Key moments from 2024

The story of the Bengals’ season was losing plays at losing time. Hendrickson played a role in too many of those plays.

On 4th and 16 against the Chiefs, Hendrickson lost contain in the pocket and allowed Patrick Mahomes to roll to his left (in fairness, Hendrickson’s pass rush earlier in this fourth quarter was the only reason why this game was close).

Hendrickson had a slow pressure in the fourth quarter of the Week 5 loss to the Ravens, didn’t get to the quarterback on time and then committed a pivotal unnecessary roughness penalty. On Derrick Henry’s big run in overtime, Hendrickson was run right at, ended up out of position and got taken out of the play by the fullback.

On the play that defined the loss to the Eagles — Jalen Hurts’ deep ball to Devonta Smith that gave Philadelphia the lead — Hendrickson had his worst rush of the season as Fred Johnson took him out of the play.

Hendrickson also missed two sacks in the fourth quarter against the Ravens (on the road) and Chargers that would have completely changed the game late in the fourth quarter.

Against the Chiefs and the Steelers (on the road), Hendrickson looked like an elite closer and delivered two of the best performances I’ve seen by a pass rusher.

Let me stress this one more time: Hendrickson was sensational in these two games and pretty much saved the entire defense with his pass rush. He also delivered two game-changing rushes against the Cowboys.

But in every other game, he didn’t make nearly that type of impact. In fact, while he was great in garbage time, he was pretty quiet in the moments that truly defined the season.

He had 30 total pressures in the fourth quarter when the Bengals had the lead in 2024. Twenty-one of those pressures took place when the Bengals were up by two scores.

He only had three pressures in the fourth quarter of tie games (two were plays he could have finished) and two total pressures in fourth quarters of games the Bengals were trailing (on one of them, he let Jacoby Brissett get a scramble lane for a first down). Hendrickson also set up no fourth quarter sacks for his teammates all season.

Breaking down Hendrickson’s production based on matchups

Hendrickson faced a bad schedule of left tackles this season. The best ones — Ronnie Stanley, Rashawn Slater and Garrett Bolles — held him to three of his five worst games of the season. In the stretch that defined the Bengals’ season, he was pretty quiet against the Ravens, Chargers and Steelers.

Over the course of the year, Hendrickson faced eight offensive tackles who were backups or on the verge of being benched. When he faced the Giants, left tackle Andrew Thomas couldn’t walk and was on the verge of getting surgery.

Hendrickson recorded nine of his 17.5 sacks against the Browns, Raiders and Giants. Against the good offenses on the Bengals’ schedule — seven games against the Chiefs, Commanders, Ravens (two games), Eagles, Chargers and Broncos — Hendrickson totaled four sacks.

As good as he was, he wasn’t as consistent or as clutch as the Bengals needed him to be. Sure, defenses were throwing the kitchen sink at him. But there’s a very high standard for a DPOY candidate that you’re weighing paying at a top-of-the-market level.

I’d also be remiss to not point out Hendrickson’s struggles against the run and vs. quarterback scrambles. I charted every explosive run that the Bengals allowed, and Hendrickson was on the field for the highest percentage of them of any Bengals’ defensive lineman. He was also the key guy up front toward allowing six explosive runs in 2024.

He also allowed too many quarterback scrambles, including a big first down by the Patriots, two runs from Bo Nix and a half-dozen plays from Lamar Jackson, among others. When Hendrickson overcommitted with his rush lane, quarterbacks ran for significant first downs in the fourth quarter.

Hendrickson is an elite pass rusher. He’s the type of edge that every team wants because he can swing a playoff game with a key third down pressure. As a whole, though, there was more that you’d want to see from Hendrickson last season.

Long-term impact as the Bengals build their roster

For this exercise, I watched every fourth down pass rush from Hendrickson as well as every pressure and every sack that he contributed all season. For a newsletter earlier this month, I went through every Tee Higgins target as well as key plays from when Higgins wasn’t on the field.

Higgins was more consistent than Hendrickson was in 2024. Higgins provided more winning plays and fewer losing plays than Hendrickson. And looking ahead at a potential next contract, Higgins is four years younger.

I’d prioritize re-signing Higgins over giving Hendrickson an extension.

If you decide that you’re not securing Hendrickson on a long-term deal, then that opens up another can of worms.

A lot of teams trade veterans who are in contract years when deals don’t get done, and there’s a lot of recent precedent of that happening on the defensive line.

Brian Burns, Montez Sweat, Chase Young, Hasaan Reddick and Leonard Williams have all been dealt over the last two years. You can make the case that the “seller” in those trades won each of those deals.

In return for Burns, the Panthers secured a second-round pick that should have turned into star Rams rookie Braden Fiske (instead, the Panthers traded back and picked an injury-prone running back). WIth the cap space that the Panthers opened up in the deal, they spent $20 million on a guard who gave Bryce Young the sturdy pocket that he desperately needed. The Panthers also picked up a fifth-round pick.

Burns is a good player, but he immediately signed a $150 million deal with New York. He finished the year with 8.5 sacks and 34 pressures.

The Commanders turned Montez Sweat into standout rookie corner Mike Sainstril, who was terrific in the playoffs, a solid rookie backup tight end Ben Sinnott (a second-round pick) and a fifth-round pick. Sweat signed a $98 million deal with the Bears and became their biggest investment of the last year.

The Commanders also turned a half-season of Chase Young into a third-round pick, which they used on a potential slot receiver of the future in Luke McCaffery.

Another interesting example is the Hasaan Reddick trade. The Eagles (playing in the Super Bowl next week) traded him to the Jets for a 2026 third-round pick, and Philadelphia used the cap space earmarked for Reddick to sign defensive end Bryce Huff.

Huff has been bad this season, but Reddick was much worse. Even though Huff hasn’t lived up to expectations, the Eagles still got the better player plus a third-round pick. This spring, the Eagles can get out of Huff’s contract and start over again.

The Bengals have a lot of work to do this offseason. Fixing the defensive line is close to the top of their priority list. You can make the case that the 2025 Bengals won’t have any hope of rushing the passer without Hendrickson, and you can make the case that they have to trade him to keep Higgins as well as get some extra resources to build a more balanced and versatile defensive line.

It’s a philosophical team building question. There’s no doubt that Hendrickson is an elite rusher, but there could possibly be some better avenues to invest resources than giving him a contract extension.

These are tough decisions. As you make them and look at the potential dollar signs involved, you have to pick apart All-Pros like Hendrickson.

He can certainly rush the passer. But is the best fit for the next few seasons on the Bengals’ defensive line?