The Cincinnati Bengals just can’t get away from the ghost of Trey Hendrickson in some shape or form.
Hendrickson’s name popped up at the NFL trade deadline for the Bengals when they agreed to trade for Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Arnold Ebiketie, then backed out of the deal.
Whoops: The deal would’ve hurt the Bengals in the compensatory draft pick formula, ultimately costing them the third-round pick they’re set to gain for the loss of Hendrickson in free agency last offseason.
Confused? So were the Bengals, it seems. They pulled out of the trade for this reason. Based on the projections, the Bengals signed two players last offseason who weighed on the formula (Bryan Cook, Boye Mafe) and lost three (Hendrickson, Joseph Ossai and Noah Fant).
Long story short, Ebiketie would have canceled out Hendrickson, whose mega-contract in Baltimore put him in the third-round pick bracket.
Here’s another weird Hendrickson slant: Replacement cost. They didn’t want to pay him the big cash, but they also wouldn’t settle on anything less than a first-round pick via trade for him. Now he’s worth a third-round pick in the comp process.
Meanwhile, they drafted Shemar Stewart in the first round, who can’t get on the field, necessitating a trade for Ebiketie in the first place. They also spent a second-rounder on Cashius Howell and paid up big for Mafe.
Granted, we’re not saying keeping Hendrickson would have been smart. But talk about layering mistakes. And keep in mind just how much time and manpower went into forming the Ebiketie trade and agreeing to it, just to back out not even an hour later, apparently because those making the trade didn’t understand the rules. All that time spent could’ve gone to working on other moves to improve the roster.
Instead, the Bengals made zero moves while taking egg on the face, somehow looping in Hendrickson’s name again, too.
This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Trey Hendrickson haunts Bengals one more time during deadline botch
