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Cincinnati Bengals Free Agency: Trey Hendrickson's Salary & Cap Space Impact
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Apr 8, 2025
John Sheeran talks about NFL free agency, as the Cincinnati Bengals and the rest of the NFL have moved past it for the most part. The biggest moves have already been made, but while looking at the Bengals roster and cap situation, there's reason to believe another move is coming. *The Bengals' Cap Situation HINTS At One More BIG Move This Offseason...* For more Bengals coverage: Facebook: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: #CincinnatiBengals #Bengals #BengalsFootball #WhoDey #NFL #NFLFootball
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0:00
Are the Bengals done making big moves in free agency
0:02
It certainly looks that way on the surface, but in this video, I'll break down the math and explain how there is still space to do noteworthy things
0:09
without expecting anything out of the ordinary. What's up, Bengals fans? John Sheeran of A to Z Sports Cincinnati here
0:18
and we are officially in the doldrums of free agency. The vast majority of players who can make a significant impact for the Bengals
0:26
they found other teams. Like maybe one or two of them are on the Bengals right now
0:30
but the majority of meaningful moves the Bengals can make in free agency
0:35
they're gone now. And I know that's concerning to a lot of you. When I look at the roster
0:39
it's certainly not in a position where I would think it should be entering the NFL draft
0:43
But as with most things, if you do the math and you follow the money, you end up finding more answers to your questions
0:49
And the math here is very simple. It involves salary cap space. Because after Lucas Patrick signed his one-year $2.1 million deal
0:56
the Bengals have just over $23 million in offseason salary cap space
1:01
Now what does offseason cap space mean Well it the sum of the top 51 cap hits on a roster plus dead money which is just money left over that already been paid out to players who have been recently cut
1:12
and then you should track that from whatever the adjusted cap ceiling is for that given team
1:16
Now, the 23-ish million dollar number that we're working with here, that's important because typically the Bengals will end up somewhere
1:23
a little bit below that when they are officially done with adding players
1:27
In tracking this team's financial trends over the better part of the last decade doing this job, typically it's $17 to $18 million in offseason space when you can think that, yes
1:35
the Bengals are officially done doing anything of significance. So that leaves us with about $5
1:39
to $6 million in additional cap space that I would expect the Bengals to use in some way
1:44
shape, or form. Now what that ends up being, I think we can all assume that the obvious answer
1:47
here is that a Trey Hendrickson extension will likely raise his cap hit from the current spot of
1:52
like $18.6 million. You could see that rise into the low 20s, which would eat up most of that
1:57
remaining five to six million dollars in space that they want to use and the reason why Hendrickson's cap it would go up this year with an extension is
2:04
because the Bengals are gonna try to increase the amount of cash that Hendrickson would earn this year to match with Max Crosby and Daniil Hunter making which is around 32 to 33 million dollars as it stands right now Hendrickson is set to earn about million in cash which obviously is significantly lower than those other two guys
2:19
So the Bengals are going to try to get it into that range of the $32 to $33, maybe even $34 million this year
2:24
And pretty much all of that is going to be in the form of bonuses, whether it's a signing bonus that's prorated
2:28
over the life of the deal, or it's just a roster bonus that gets placed on the cap this year
2:32
Regardless, Hendrickson's cap is going to go up, and that's going to eat into the cap space
2:35
that the Bengals have for the rest of this offseason. And that may just be it, right? There's been multiple reports recently that the Bengals are still working on this
2:41
They're still communicating. This is the goal that they're trying to achieve, and they're not really interested in trading him
2:46
So this seems to be the logical conclusion for whatever this ends up. But I still think it's possible that the Bengals could create more cap space
2:52
to do more outside of just extending Hendrickson. Like I know Brandon Scherf has been brought up a ton
2:56
He's been brought up by me multiple times on this channel. If the Bengals were to sign him to like maybe a one-year
3:01
seven, $8 million deal, that's obviously a lot of cap space that would eat into however much the Bengals want to save
3:06
for the remainder of the offseason. But you can offset that cap hit by just releasing players that are expected to be cut at the end of the day regardless
3:12
For example if Scherf or another guard were to be signed with the intent of starting the Bengals could create cap space to offset whatever that cap is by just releasing Cordell Volsson who probably isn going to make the team if another veteran guard and a rookie end up joining the picture It just too crowded and Volson million cap hit it just too much to keep him on the
3:28
bench. And then there's running back Zach Moss, who's kind of just hanging out in limbo right now because he's dealing with a neck injury and the Bengals don't want to officially release him
3:34
until he's cleared, so they don't actually owe him money or any more money if they were to release
3:38
him. But those two moves right there can basically offset a Brandon Scherf signing or any other
3:42
signing that the Bengals would want to make in the near future. Now, of course, the Bengals don't have to make any of these cuts to afford any of these moves right again 23 million dollars in
3:50
cap space goes a long way when you go from march to april a lot of the deals that you'll see in
3:54
free agency they're not very lucrative the reason why 17 to 18 million dollars is basically their
3:59
cutoff point is because around 10 million of that goes to draft picks it goes to off-season workouts
4:04
it goes to budgeting for the practice squad in the middle of the season and then the remaining 78 million dollars that just carries into the season for any emergency signings and then
4:11
eventually gets rolled over to next year where we start over the cycle all over again this team's
4:15
Trends make it very easy to predict what they're going to do next. So if you do have any natural skepticism about the Bengals fitting in both a Trey Hendrickson extension and another guard signing
4:25
just know that the math checks out and both are entirely possible
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