CINCINNATI —  Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer gave his take on the Bengals offseason this week as the team gets caught between old and new ways with their contract decisions.

Cincinnati opened Pandora’s Box by making Ja’Marr Chase the highest-paid-non-quarterback in the NFL and Trey Hendrickson is obviously noticing.

“Is Hendrickson taking advantage of the leverage created by Burrow’s words and the spot the Bengals are in?” Breer posed in his latest column. “He’d be smart to do that. Is [Shemar] Stewart piggybacking on the Hendrickson situation to get favorable contract terms? It wouldn’t be the dumbest thing to do—though, as a rookie, it’ll be vital that he’s ready to go. Also important? That the Bengals, after their healthiest offseason in a few years, are ready to roll when they report to camp. The stakes are high. The battle lines are drawn. We’ll see what happens.”

The stakes are definitely high. If Cincinnati goes through an in-season holdout with Trey Hendrickson, it will be wildly difficult to make the playoffs for just the third time in the last 10 seasons.

Cincinnati needs all hands on deck, especially on defense, to reach its ceiling and that hasn’t happened for any sessions so far this offseason.

The start of training camp on July 23 looms as the next checkpoint to try and get both Hendrickson and Stewart in the fold.