Bengals 'Low-Balling' Trey Hendrickson at $28 Million as Trade Rumors Swirl

The last Bengals number reported regarding an offer to Trey Hendrickson would pay him about $28 million annually. There are two problems there.

Another day, another Trey Hendrickson trade rumor.

Also ... another day, another hint that the Cincinnati Bengals are insisting on sitting on their hands when it comes to their superstar edge rusher.

Hendrickson remains embroiled in a nasty contract dispute as he is seeking a pricey extension.

How much? We'll get to that in a moment.

More immediately, we know for a fact that every media outlet in 31 NFL cities has tried to engineer a way to move him from the "cheap'' Bengals to their fair berg.

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The latest? The Chicago Bears are being suggested as a landing spot, with Chicago's Pete Martuneac pushing for the move.

"He may be on the wrong side of 30, but Hendrickson is coming off back-to-back seasons of 17 or more sacks. That kind of production can't be ignored and would provide a mammoth shot in the arm for Chicago's pass rush unit," he wrote.

But the writer added, "This could be a potentially difficult trade to pull off since Hendrickson is looking for a big payday and Chicago is light on salary cap space.''

Oh.

Yeah, if a prospective new team isn't going to pay Hendrickson, who insists he refuses to play on his present $21 million deal? He's probably not getting traded to that prospective new team.

Hendrickson, who has essentially labeled the Bengals as liars, has apparently recently visited with the front office. ESPN's Adam Schefter said, "I think there is a disagreement over value and I think most important, there’s a disagreement on length here. Length of deal, I think that’s also an issue here. The Bengals would like a shorter deal, Hendrickson would like a longer deal. And they can’t even find common ground on the length of the deal right now.”

So, Schefter thinks the two sides can't agree on value and can't agree on length?

That's like ... everything.

Meanwhile, the last Bengals number reported regarding an offer to Hendrickson would pay him about $28 million annually. Two things there: One, if the team acknowledges that the four-time Pro Bowler deserves a raise, that's a low-ball number. And two, that "latest report'' is a month old ...

Suggesting that Cincy isn't budging.

The superstar edge guys now get in excess of $30 million APY. That's got to be the ground floor here. Hendrickson will turn 31 in December, so even as a 17-sacks-per-year guy, this doesn't have to be a tremendously long contract.

But what does have to happen in the coming weeks is movement on a realistic offer or a realistic trading of Hendrickson.