Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are going
straight into that brutal crossroads where elite athletic performance meets
the cold, hard cash of the National Football League.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's an unforgiving place, it really is.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And this week we're looking at what is honestly a
bit of a cautionary tale. It's a story of how
fast a player's incredible self earned value can.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Just evaporate, well because of age and a really really
unlucky injury.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, so let's unpack this. Our focus today is Trey Hendrickson.
He's the you know, the phenomenal edge rusher for the Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Bengals, or he was when he was on the field.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Right, And our mission here is to really dig into
his chaotic twenty twenty five campaign. I mean, it's been
a saga. It started with a contract gold out, then
a trade request, and now a serious injury.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And we want to figure out what this whole mess
tells us about, you know, trying to predict the financial
shelf life of these defensive superstars. It's tricky business, it is.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So what were the stakes for him coming into this year?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, look, before twenty twenty five, Hendrickson was standing on
the edge of generational wealth. He was chasing a huge,
multi year deal, the kind that puts you in the
top tier of defensive players in the league.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
And he had the stats to back that upright.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh absolutely, he had a production. But what makes this
deep dive so interesting is that his entire twenty twenty
five season has just turned into a text book case
of projected value collapsing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
And not because he started playing poorly, No.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Not at all. It was all external factors. It was
this combination of hitting a certain age and then getting
hurt and that just created this this seismic shift in
his value.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And that's the tension we're diving into. You have a
player who is so desperate for that long term security
and then he just hits one roadblock after another. It's
like a grenade went off in his negotiation strategy exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
The whole conversation changed. It went from how much is
he going to get to.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Is he even going to get a multi year deal
at all?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
That's it. The volatility is just staggering when you look
at it.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So let's start at the beginning of the chaos leading
into the season. It was clear things were not smooth
between him and the Bengals.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Not at all. He spent basically the whole off season
either holding out or you know, outright asking for a trade.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
He was making it very clear he wanted a new contract,
a long term one. He was betting on himself.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It was a power struggle, and a very public one.
The Bengals had him under contract, but he felt, and
probably rightly so, that his production deserved an immediate upgrade,
especially at his age, especially at his age. So eventually
they patched things up, a temporary fix was found, and
he agreed to come back after they worked out some
kind of short term deal.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
When was that late August?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, right before the season started, And for a little
while it looked like his bet was paying off.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He came out of the gate strong.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
He did. He was proving his worth all over again.
The sources say he got four sax in just seven games.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Which is a great pace. That's a pace that backs
up his demands absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
But then the pivot point, the event that changed the
entire narrative.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
The hip injury.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The hip injury, and this wasn't just some minor tweak.
It was serious enough that he's now missed five games.
And the critical part is there is still no timetable
for his return.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And that uncertainty. That's what kills contract value, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It's the silent killer, no question.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Let's dig into how the Bengals handled this, because there's
a little nuance here that I think tells us a
lot about what they were expecting versus what actually happened.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You're talking about the injured Reserve decision exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
The sources point out that they chose not to put
him on IR sre anyone who doesn't know putting a
player on IR means they have to miss a minimum
of four games.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And not putting him on IR is a huge signal.
It's the front office telling you they expect a quick return.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
They were thinking what two or three weeks max at most.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
They believed to be back on the field well before
that four game minimum was up, but that calculation clearly
didn't pan.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Out, not even close. He's already missed five games and
we still don't know when he's coming back.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And that delay doesn't just hurt the defense on the field,
it exponentially increases the risk profile for any team that
might have been looking at him for the future.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
So the injury turned out to be way more complicated than.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
They hope, way more and that extended absence didn't just
hurt Hendrickson, it created a huge strategic problem for the
Bengals themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Which leads us right into this idea of a missed opportunity. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Look, if you have an elite player who's getting older,
is unhappy, and wants a trade, you have two real
windows to make a move, the off season and the
mid season trade deadline, and.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The sources confirmed the Bengals miss both. They held onto him,
they did, But why? I mean, if his value was
already a bit of a question mark because of his
age and contract, wouldn't it have been smarter to get
what they could when he was healthy instead of risking
a total loss.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That is the multi million dollar question, isn't it? And
I think there are two likely answers. First, they probably
hoped his hot start those four sacs might you know,
get him to change.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
His min Or maybe they thought they were making a
Super Bowl run and needed him.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
That's the other part. They saw him as indispensable. But second,
and this is the big takeaway for you, the trade
market was probably a lot colder than they expected, even
when he was healthy even then. The source material is
very direct about this. It says there is and I'm
quoting here, just not a great trade market for even
the best defenders on the wrong side of thirty.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Let's break that down. What is it about crossing that
that invisible line of age thirty or thirty one? I mean,
his skill didn't just disappear overnight.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Of course not, but the perceived financial risk just skyrockets.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So teams aren't trading high picks because they're scared of
the contract they'll have to give him after the trade.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Precisely, you trade for a guy like Hendrickson, the expectation
is you immediately signed him to a big extension three
four years.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And no team wants to commit huge, guaranteed money to
a player in their mid.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Thirties because they know that physical decline is statistically right
around the corner. It's inevitable. So the trade offers they
were getting were probably insulting from their perspective.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So the Bengals were just stuck. They didn't get a
good offer, they held on and then the worst case
scenario happened.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
He got hurt, and the financial reality of that is
just brutal. The sources say that because they didn't trade him,
the Bengals are probably going to get nothing for their
best defensive player, well.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Except maybe a compensatory pick.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right maybe, But let's be clear about the difference there.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, could you explain that for our listeners? What's the
real difference between a trade return and a comp pick.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Sure, a trade would have given them something real right now,
like a second or third round pick they could use
in the next draft, an immediate asset, Okay. A compensatory pick,
on the other hand, is it's a much lower round pick.
It's awarded by the league like a year later, based
on a complex formula if he leaves and signs a
big contract somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So they basically traded a high value immediate asset for
a distant, lower value lottery tick.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's a perfect way to put it. It's a massive
loss of value for a player of his caliber, just
a catastrophic bit of timing.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Wow, the moment they decided to hold on to him,
they were placing this huge bet that he would defy
the odds stay healthy.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And the bet blew up in their face.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, but to really feel the scale of this loss,
we need to remember just how good he was. We
need to set the ceiling before we talk about the floor.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yes, before we talk about how much value was lost.
Let's establish what that peak value was, because it had
to be insane for him to be demanding that kind
of money.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It was more than insane. It was statistically one of
a kind. The sources say he was incredibly valuable in
twenty twenty four. And get this, he put up a
second straight seventeen point five SAX season, second one two
years in a row. That kind of consistency at that
level is just it's almost unheard of for an edge rusher.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Putting up back to back seventeen point five SAX seasons
doesn't just get you elite money, it makes you the
entire conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
There's another stat, the real aha nugget that shows why
he was so unique.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yes, this is the one that moves him from just
being a great pass rusher into like a genuine game
breaking force.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Tell us what the source is found.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
The stat is just it's mind boggling. In twenty twenty four,
Hendrickson created nearly twice as many sacks as any other
player in football for himself and his teammates.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Let's just pause on that twice as many, twice as many.
So it wasn't just him getting sacks. He was creating chaos.
He was demanding double teens, flushing the quarterback and letting
his teammates clean up.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
He was a force multiplier. That's the only way to
say it. When you are creating twice the havoc of
the next best guy, you aren't just good. You are
generating value that almost nobody else in the lead can replicate.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And that is exactly why he was expecting that top
of market deal twenty five million a year, probably more.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
He had the receipts in duplicate.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So we have the context, a historically dominant player ready
to cash in, and now we have the reality a
lost injury wrecked twenty two twenty.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Which brings us to the core Lesson here right, the
brutal reality of the aging curve.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Exactly. This whole season shows you how tricky aging curves
can be to project. I mean, Hendrickson was playing at
a level that defied his age.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
He was, but the second an injury happens when you're
on the wrong side of thirty, the market just reacts instantly.
It assumes the decline has officially started.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So that three or four year deal with all the
guaranteed money, what's the verdict on that dream? Now?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
The unfortunate truth, based on the sources, is that it's gone.
That multi year top of the market deal is not
going to happen in free agency. Now.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The injury was just too big a red flag.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's a massive demerit. It introduces this huge element of
risk that just wasn't there before. No GM is going
to gamble that kind of money on a guy with
a lingering hip issue at this stage of his career.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
So that leaves him with two very different possible outcomes,
and they were worlds apart.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Financially, it's a huge spectrum. We're talking about the difference
between you some real s security and a pure high
risk gamble.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Let's lay out the best case scenario first. What has
to happen for him to still get a decent contract.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Okay, Scenario one is all about his recovery. If he
can somehow make it back before the end of the
season and look like his old self.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Even for just a couple of games.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Even for just two or three games. If he does that,
the market will still be very interested. Teams will see
the twenty twenty four production. They'll see he's healthy and
they'll view the injury as a fluke.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And what would significant interests look like in that case
a multi year.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Deal, probably not a long one. More likely a shorter
term deal with a high average salary, maybe two years
with the guarantees loaded into year one. A contender would
pay a premium for that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, But then there's scenario two, the worst case outcome.
What happens if this hip injury just keeps him out
for the rest of the year.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well, if he doesn't get back on the field, all
the power shifts to the teams. He's no longer a
cornerstone you build around. He's a one year, high upside flyer,
a prove it deal.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
He has a bet on himself all over again, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And our sources give us a very specific financial benchmark
for what that looks like. It's a number he'd likely
be looking at a contract in the range of the
twelve point six million dollars that Joey Bosa signed in Buffalo.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Wow, that's a staggering drop.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
This is a player who is asking for a contract
that was probably double that just a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And that's the perfect illustration of this whole story. It
shows how quickly elite production gets wiped out by age
and injury. It doesn't matter how good you are.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It's brutal. Think about the mental toll of that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It's got to be immense. He was probably months away
from setting his family up for life, and now that
goalpost has been pushed a whole year down the road,
maybe more.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It just reinforces that cold logic of the NFL. Production
is great, but availability is everything.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Especially when you get older, availability is king.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So to sum this all up for you, the Trey
Hendrickson story is a really stark reminder of how this
league works. You can have elite production back to back
seven teen point five SAX seasons.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
But the second that production run into two things at once,
being on the wrong side of thirty and a serious injury,
your value just plummets.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
It shifts you from negotiating long term security to fighting
for a one year, proven deal.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It really makes you appreciate the guys who not only
play at that level but somehow stay healthy through their
early thirties. They are truly the unicorns, they really are.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
So here's the final thought for you to chew on
as we wrap this up. We know there's still no
timetable for his return. We know the Bengals thought this
would be a quick recovery and they were wrong, very wrong.
So which of those two contract scenarios do you think
is more likely for him now? Is it the significant
interest that comes from a rush late season return, or
(12:45):
is it the harsh reality of that one year, twelve
point six million dollar benchmark.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
The answer to that really depends entirely on what happens
in the next few weeks, and those weeks are running
out fast.
Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are going
straight into that brutal crossroads where elite athletic performance meets
the cold, hard cash of the National Football League.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's an unforgiving place, it really is.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And this week we're looking at what is honestly a
bit of a cautionary tale. It's a story of how
fast a player's incredible self earned value can.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Just evaporate, well because of age and a really really
unlucky injury.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Okay, so let's unpack this. Our focus today is Trey Hendrickson.
He's the you know, the phenomenal edge rusher for the Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Bengals, or he was when he was on the field.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Right, And our mission here is to really dig into
his chaotic twenty twenty five campaign. I mean, it's been
a saga. It started with a contract gold out, then
a trade request, and now a serious injury.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And we want to figure out what this whole mess
tells us about, you know, trying to predict the financial
shelf life of these defensive superstars. It's tricky business, it is.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So what were the stakes for him coming into this year?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, look, before twenty twenty five, Hendrickson was standing on
the edge of generational wealth. He was chasing a huge,
multi year deal, the kind that puts you in the
top tier of defensive players in the league.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
And he had the stats to back that upright.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh absolutely, he had a production. But what makes this
deep dive so interesting is that his entire twenty twenty
five season has just turned into a text book case
of projected value collapsing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
And not because he started playing poorly, No.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Not at all. It was all external factors. It was
this combination of hitting a certain age and then getting
hurt and that just created this this seismic shift in
his value.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And that's the tension we're diving into. You have a
player who is so desperate for that long term security
and then he just hits one roadblock after another. It's
like a grenade went off in his negotiation strategy exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
The whole conversation changed. It went from how much is
he going to get to.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Is he even going to get a multi year deal
at all?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
That's it. The volatility is just staggering when you look
at it.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So let's start at the beginning of the chaos leading
into the season. It was clear things were not smooth
between him and the Bengals.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Not at all. He spent basically the whole off season
either holding out or you know, outright asking for a trade.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
He was making it very clear he wanted a new contract,
a long term one. He was betting on himself.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It was a power struggle, and a very public one.
The Bengals had him under contract, but he felt, and
probably rightly so, that his production deserved an immediate upgrade,
especially at his age, especially at his age. So eventually
they patched things up, a temporary fix was found, and
he agreed to come back after they worked out some
kind of short term deal.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
When was that late August?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, right before the season started, And for a little
while it looked like his bet was paying off.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He came out of the gate strong.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
He did. He was proving his worth all over again.
The sources say he got four sax in just seven games.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Which is a great pace. That's a pace that backs
up his demands absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
But then the pivot point, the event that changed the
entire narrative.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
The hip injury.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The hip injury, and this wasn't just some minor tweak.
It was serious enough that he's now missed five games.
And the critical part is there is still no timetable
for his return.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And that uncertainty. That's what kills contract value, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It's the silent killer, no question.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Let's dig into how the Bengals handled this, because there's
a little nuance here that I think tells us a
lot about what they were expecting versus what actually happened.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You're talking about the injured Reserve decision exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
The sources point out that they chose not to put
him on IR sre anyone who doesn't know putting a
player on IR means they have to miss a minimum
of four games.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And not putting him on IR is a huge signal.
It's the front office telling you they expect a quick return.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
They were thinking what two or three weeks max at most.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
They believed to be back on the field well before
that four game minimum was up, but that calculation clearly
didn't pan.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Out, not even close. He's already missed five games and
we still don't know when he's coming back.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And that delay doesn't just hurt the defense on the field,
it exponentially increases the risk profile for any team that
might have been looking at him for the future.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
So the injury turned out to be way more complicated than.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
They hope, way more and that extended absence didn't just
hurt Hendrickson, it created a huge strategic problem for the
Bengals themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Which leads us right into this idea of a missed opportunity. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Look, if you have an elite player who's getting older,
is unhappy, and wants a trade, you have two real
windows to make a move, the off season and the
mid season trade deadline, and.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The sources confirmed the Bengals miss both. They held onto him,
they did, But why? I mean, if his value was
already a bit of a question mark because of his
age and contract, wouldn't it have been smarter to get
what they could when he was healthy instead of risking
a total loss.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That is the multi million dollar question, isn't it? And
I think there are two likely answers. First, they probably
hoped his hot start those four sacs might you know,
get him to change.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
His min Or maybe they thought they were making a
Super Bowl run and needed him.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
That's the other part. They saw him as indispensable. But second,
and this is the big takeaway for you, the trade
market was probably a lot colder than they expected, even
when he was healthy even then. The source material is
very direct about this. It says there is and I'm
quoting here, just not a great trade market for even
the best defenders on the wrong side of thirty.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Let's break that down. What is it about crossing that
that invisible line of age thirty or thirty one? I mean,
his skill didn't just disappear overnight.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Of course not, but the perceived financial risk just skyrockets.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So teams aren't trading high picks because they're scared of
the contract they'll have to give him after the trade.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Precisely, you trade for a guy like Hendrickson, the expectation
is you immediately signed him to a big extension three
four years.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And no team wants to commit huge, guaranteed money to
a player in their mid.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Thirties because they know that physical decline is statistically right
around the corner. It's inevitable. So the trade offers they
were getting were probably insulting from their perspective.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So the Bengals were just stuck. They didn't get a
good offer, they held on and then the worst case
scenario happened.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
He got hurt, and the financial reality of that is
just brutal. The sources say that because they didn't trade him,
the Bengals are probably going to get nothing for their
best defensive player, well.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Except maybe a compensatory pick.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right maybe, But let's be clear about the difference there.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, could you explain that for our listeners? What's the
real difference between a trade return and a comp pick.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Sure, a trade would have given them something real right now,
like a second or third round pick they could use
in the next draft, an immediate asset, Okay. A compensatory pick,
on the other hand, is it's a much lower round pick.
It's awarded by the league like a year later, based
on a complex formula if he leaves and signs a
big contract somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So they basically traded a high value immediate asset for
a distant, lower value lottery tick.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's a perfect way to put it. It's a massive
loss of value for a player of his caliber, just
a catastrophic bit of timing.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Wow, the moment they decided to hold on to him,
they were placing this huge bet that he would defy
the odds stay healthy.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And the bet blew up in their face.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, but to really feel the scale of this loss,
we need to remember just how good he was. We
need to set the ceiling before we talk about the floor.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yes, before we talk about how much value was lost.
Let's establish what that peak value was, because it had
to be insane for him to be demanding that kind
of money.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It was more than insane. It was statistically one of
a kind. The sources say he was incredibly valuable in
twenty twenty four. And get this, he put up a
second straight seventeen point five SAX season, second one two
years in a row. That kind of consistency at that
level is just it's almost unheard of for an edge rusher.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Putting up back to back seventeen point five SAX seasons
doesn't just get you elite money, it makes you the
entire conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
There's another stat, the real aha nugget that shows why
he was so unique.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yes, this is the one that moves him from just
being a great pass rusher into like a genuine game
breaking force.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Tell us what the source is found.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
The stat is just it's mind boggling. In twenty twenty four,
Hendrickson created nearly twice as many sacks as any other
player in football for himself and his teammates.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Let's just pause on that twice as many, twice as many.
So it wasn't just him getting sacks. He was creating chaos.
He was demanding double teens, flushing the quarterback and letting
his teammates clean up.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
He was a force multiplier. That's the only way to
say it. When you are creating twice the havoc of
the next best guy, you aren't just good. You are
generating value that almost nobody else in the lead can replicate.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And that is exactly why he was expecting that top
of market deal twenty five million a year, probably more.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
He had the receipts in duplicate.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So we have the context, a historically dominant player ready
to cash in, and now we have the reality a
lost injury wrecked twenty two twenty.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Which brings us to the core Lesson here right, the
brutal reality of the aging curve.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Exactly. This whole season shows you how tricky aging curves
can be to project. I mean, Hendrickson was playing at
a level that defied his age.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
He was, but the second an injury happens when you're
on the wrong side of thirty, the market just reacts instantly.
It assumes the decline has officially started.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So that three or four year deal with all the
guaranteed money, what's the verdict on that dream? Now?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
The unfortunate truth, based on the sources, is that it's gone.
That multi year top of the market deal is not
going to happen in free agency. Now.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The injury was just too big a red flag.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's a massive demerit. It introduces this huge element of
risk that just wasn't there before. No GM is going
to gamble that kind of money on a guy with
a lingering hip issue at this stage of his career.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
So that leaves him with two very different possible outcomes,
and they were worlds apart.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Financially, it's a huge spectrum. We're talking about the difference
between you some real s security and a pure high
risk gamble.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Let's lay out the best case scenario first. What has
to happen for him to still get a decent contract.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Okay, Scenario one is all about his recovery. If he
can somehow make it back before the end of the
season and look like his old self.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Even for just a couple of games.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Even for just two or three games. If he does that,
the market will still be very interested. Teams will see
the twenty twenty four production. They'll see he's healthy and
they'll view the injury as a fluke.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And what would significant interests look like in that case
a multi year.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Deal, probably not a long one. More likely a shorter
term deal with a high average salary, maybe two years
with the guarantees loaded into year one. A contender would
pay a premium for that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, But then there's scenario two, the worst case outcome.
What happens if this hip injury just keeps him out
for the rest of the year.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well, if he doesn't get back on the field, all
the power shifts to the teams. He's no longer a
cornerstone you build around. He's a one year, high upside flyer,
a prove it deal.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
He has a bet on himself all over again, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And our sources give us a very specific financial benchmark
for what that looks like. It's a number he'd likely
be looking at a contract in the range of the
twelve point six million dollars that Joey Bosa signed in Buffalo.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Wow, that's a staggering drop.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
This is a player who is asking for a contract
that was probably double that just a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And that's the perfect illustration of this whole story. It
shows how quickly elite production gets wiped out by age
and injury. It doesn't matter how good you are.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It's brutal. Think about the mental toll of that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It's got to be immense. He was probably months away
from setting his family up for life, and now that
goalpost has been pushed a whole year down the road,
maybe more.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It just reinforces that cold logic of the NFL. Production
is great, but availability is everything.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Especially when you get older, availability is king.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So to sum this all up for you, the Trey
Hendrickson story is a really stark reminder of how this
league works. You can have elite production back to back
seven teen point five SAX seasons.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
But the second that production run into two things at once,
being on the wrong side of thirty and a serious injury,
your value just plummets.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
It shifts you from negotiating long term security to fighting
for a one year, proven deal.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It really makes you appreciate the guys who not only
play at that level but somehow stay healthy through their
early thirties. They are truly the unicorns, they really are.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
So here's the final thought for you to chew on
as we wrap this up. We know there's still no
timetable for his return. We know the Bengals thought this
would be a quick recovery and they were wrong, very wrong.
So which of those two contract scenarios do you think
is more likely for him now? Is it the significant
interest that comes from a rush late season return, or
(12:45):
is it the harsh reality of that one year, twelve
point six million dollar benchmark.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
The answer to that really depends entirely on what happens
in the next few weeks, and those weeks are running
out fast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.