8/25/25: The Afternoon Season Preview Report

The Trey Hendrickson saga has ended. For now. 

Mo and Tony have Bengals season preview reports weekday mornings at 7:25 on 700WLW, and weekday afternoons at 3:45, 4:45, and 5:45 on ESPN1530.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here are the particulars on Trey Hendrickson's one year contract.
He gets a fourteen million dollar raise, so he'll make
about thirty million dollars in twenty twenty five. Tony Pike
is with us for a season preview report. Tony, I
think this is a win for all sides. Trey gets
his raise, Bengals get their best defensive player on the
field in the first game. Uh, they don't have to

(00:22):
commit long term two years. They weren't nuts about committing
long term two And we can keep talking about Trey
Hendrickson's contract in his future beyond twenty twenty five. No
one loses.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
There's including us in all of this. But look, the
main part of this that I think jumps out is
the fact that the Bengals don't have to commit outside
of this year. The drawback I felt like all along
was Trey Hendrickson's age and worried about the falloff. And
if you're Trey Hendrickson, you get the fourteen million dollar raise.
You also get a chance after this season to show

(00:55):
why you deserve another type of guaranteed contract. So if
you're Trey, go out there, ball out on the football field.
Have another huge year from a SAX standpoint, and then
someone or the Bengals will be able to give you
more money. I think it does. It's an outcome I
didn't know what exists because of just the one year deal,

(01:15):
but it does feel like both sides can really feast
off of this and come out positive.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah. I mean, maybe this didn't feel like the most
likely outcome, but it always to me felt like a
plausible one. If you thought that Trey deserves a raise,
which the Bengals have acknowledged, if you understood why they
had reservations about his productivity during a season next year
when he's going to turn thirty two years old, and
if you understood the value of Trey having that carrot

(01:42):
being dangled in front of him to hit free agency.
If he has a big year this year, plus they
can still bring him back. It's not necessarily, you know,
an inevitability that will hit free agency and leave the team.
The t Higgins thing last year taught us that I
love this outcome quite frankly.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, it's the best pop wockcome I think there could
have been. And at the core of it with Trey
Hendrickson again as an opportunity to go prove it now
to show why you deserve this. It checks every box
in my opinion, It checks Trey's box that he said,
you know, as the Bengals said going into last year
that if he were to have another successful year, they

(02:21):
would make it right financially, The Bengals have done that.
Trey's getting a massive guarantee and the Bengals aren't tied
up long term, which again gives them the flexibility for
the future. But it also sends a message mo of
we are in this win now mentality and we fully
embraced out and understand that as an organization.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, that's the key thing for me, right. Al Golden
has a very tough task in front of him. We've
talked about the defense all training camp long, all throughout
the offseason. At the very least, Al Golden today knows
he's guaranteed to have Trey on the field dead first game,
which I'm sure for him represents a sigh relief.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, it should be. If we go by what Al
Goldon has said that they've just been very base. They've
kept saying basic. Now, maybe with Trey Hendrickson back, maybe
you can ramp things up a little bit. Maybe you
can get creative what you can show or not show
against Cleveland. I would imagine with two weeks to ramp
things up, Trey's not gonna be on any type of
restriction because of the way he keeps his body in shape.

(03:21):
So yeah, it is a much added assist here to
Al Golden, who has kind of been doing this with
one hand tied behind his back because of the personnel
on this defensive side of the ball. Now you have
the NFL sack leader onto any defense. It's going to
be an upgrade surely for this team that's lacking playmakers.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Tony, awesome stuff. We'll talk again tomorrow, man, thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
All right, Well,