Grading EDGE Trey Hendrickson’s deal with the Bengals: B-

The Bengals had the NFL’s fewest sacks (17), the second-fewest pressures (111) ahead of only the Lions (105), and the NFL’s third-lowest pressure rate (19.0%), behind only the Lions and Titans. To try and alleviate these issues, Cincinnati agreed to terms with former Saints edge-rusher Trey Hendrickson on a four-year, $60 million deal worth $32 million in the first two years, per Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network.

Selected in the third round of the 2017 draft out of Florida Atlantic, Hendrickson amassed a total of 6.5 sacks in his first three NFL seasons, and didn’t start a game until Week 11 of the 2019 campaign. Then 2020 got going, and all hell broke loose. Hendrickson had 13.5 sacks, 11 quarterback hits, and 25 quarterback hurries, along with 23 stops.

Extremely fast through and to the pocket, Hendrickson put on perhaps his best performances of the season against both Super Bowl teams: The Buccaneers in Week 9, and the Chiefs in Week 15. He had two sacks in each game and a total of 13 pressures.On this sack of Tom Brady, Hendrickson times the snap perfectly, and puts on a serious speed-to-power clinic against Bucs left tackle Donovan Smith…

…and on this sack of Mahomes, Hendrickson comes off the snap so quickly from a wide alignment, left tackle Eric Fisher can’t catch him even though Fisher takes an especially deep pass set. Bonus points for the forced fumble.

Primarily a right end in New Orleans’ defense last season, Hendrickson became a serious player at exactly the right time in a contractual sense.

However… Hendrickson is great at what he does, but he doesn’t provide a ton of scheme or gap versatility — per Pro Football Focus, he played just 17 snaps inside the tackles last season, and if you don’t have a system in which he can eat all day as a speed-rusher, his overall impact could be severely negated. He’s not a one-year wonder as his sack totals might suggest — he had 30 pressures in 2019 to his 50 pressures in 2020 — but when you sign Hendrickson, you’d better be well aware of what he can and can’t do. It could easily be argued that Cincinnati had a better overall edge-rusher in Carl Lawson, and let him go to the Jets for similar money (three years, $45 million).