Trey Hendrickson is making more noise in Cincinnati, sort of spelling out how badly he wants to leave the Bengals.
It wasn't stated in so many words by Hendrickson but was conveyed and you could just imagine ears perking up in Chicago.
He did confirm for reporters he wouldn't play on his current contract terms this year.
Of course it means Bears fans are screaming for him in a trade, as usual. A player becomes available or could become available, and Bears fans are: "Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee." Bears fans never met another team's problem player they didn't like.
Bears' ability to pay
Of the four teams in the NFC North, the Bears are the least capable of trading for Hendrickson even though they have a quarterback still playing on his first contract.
Here is how much each NFC North team has left available in salary cap space for 2025 according to Overthecap.com:
- Lions $42.3 million
- Packers $31.1 million
- Vikings $13.4 million
- Bears $6.8 million
Here is how much effective cap space each team has left in the NFC North. This is their cap space including what they have to spend yet for 2025 draft picks.
- Lions $39.0 million
- Packers $27.4 million
- Vikings $13.6 million
- Bears $174,117
This should spell it out pretty clearly, but the list can be expanded to include the other 25 teams who have more salary cap space available this year than the Bears do, if you'd like.
Just be like Ryan Pace
Nothing is impossible in the NFL, though. Otherwise the Saints would have been on government relief a couple years ago.
Sometimes teams can push off until next year what they are supposed to pay now. This is called the Ryan Pace approach. It's what the Bears' former GM did.
The Bears rank behind 17 other teams in cap space for 2026 at $27.99 millon. This doesn't include the money they need to get to Joe Thuney for a contract extension or the money they have to spend for their 2026 draft picks. After that's taken into account, they might be close to the break-even point.
Maybe they could find a way to use some cap space from 2027 like Pace would do.
They could restructure contracts. It probably would take multiple players contracts restructured, like the deals for DJ Moore, Montez Sweat and Tremaine Edmunds.
Then, when Hendrickson is turning 33 during the 2027 season, they could devote their biggest chunk of cap space to a player whose skills are in complete decline. And when Moore, Sweat and Edmunds are long gone, they could still be paying space out of their salary cap in dead cap for those players.
Maybe they should try to push that money off until 2030 when he's 36, or 2034 when he's 40. Actually, they can't push it out until 2034. Just kidding.
Start cutting players
- They could create sufficient cap room for this year by cutting Joe Thuney and Kevin Byard right now.
- If they didn't want to cut Thuney, which you'd presume since they just traded a fourth-round pick for him and he is a four-time All-Pro, then they could wait until June 1 and cut Byard, Jaquan Brisker, Braxton Jones, Cairo Santos, Chris Williams and Ryan Bates.
Congratulations, your starting safeties this year will be Jonathan Owens and Elijah Hicks. You have no experienced guard replacement, the starting left tackle will be a rookie on opening day. And oh by the way, you're going to need to hold a kicker competition like Matt Nagy did in 2019 or just keep the rookie kicker on the roster at training camp.
None of this takes into account the 2026 salary cap situation, but there would be other players to release by then so that you could keep Hendrickson. And if he's not playing for what he makes now, the contract probably is going to need to go up around $30 million a year or more instead of the current $16 million. Then more guys need to go from the roster.
Get real
The message is Bears money is already spent. There is no money.
The Bears also don't have extra draft picks in 2026 like they had this year in Round 2 so they have nothing extra to use as trade compensation. They would be dealing away their draft picks, their future by going after him with the Pace approach.
If the Bears wound up with Hendrickson then it would mean about two-thirds of the rest of the league fell asleep or their phones went dead and they couldn't talk to the Bengals because they're all in better shape to trade for him than the Bears.
It's not happening.
