The Cincinnati Bengals are in the midst of a tumultuous offseason. A year after giving Joe Burrow a massive contract extension, the team now has to give new deals to wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins or risk losing them. This is why the Bengals have given defensive end Trey Hendrickson, entering the last year of his contract, permission to seek a trade, and Cincinnati legend, former offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth, blames the Las Vegas Raiders and its newly-paid star, Maxx Crosby.
“You look at Trey Hendrickson's situation,” Whitworth said on the Pat McAfee Show. “I think it's the Maxx Crosby deal that really probably sent this to this point because now they go, ‘Wow. If that's the asking price, you probably need to go out there and see if there's another team that would offer you that and then give us some compensation to really make it worth our while to move on.'”
The deal the Raiders gave Crosby is four years for $106.5 million with $91.5 million guaranteed. This makes him the highest-paid non-quarterback in the history of the league, at least for the time being.
This means that Hendrickson, who has 77.0 sacks in eight seasons (11.9 per 17 games) to Crosby's 59.5 in six seasons (10.6 per 17 games), should get a contract in that neighborhood. With Burrow on the books for a $46-$57 million cap hit in each of the next five seasons and Higgins and Chase both slotted for big deals, it would be hard for the Bengals to make all this work.
Hard. But not impossible.
With the right mix of cash upfront and creative accounting, the Bengals could probably fit all these stars in one locker room. However, that simply isn't what owner Mike Brown and the organization does.
No one knows this better than Whitworth, who once upon a time left Cincinnati for the Los Angles Rams when he got a better deal in free agency. And just for the record, the offensive tackle made a Pro Bowl, a first-team All-Pro team, and won a Super Bowl with LA.
Whitworth also told McAfee that the Bengals are “way behind times” with the way they deal with players' contracts, letting them “fester” before paying them and killing the “vibes” in the locker room.
