CINCINNATI — The Bengals are reportedly back listening to trade offers for star edge rusher Trey Hendrickson. Recent history says to tread lightly with that idea, just ask Jared Allen.
If Cincinnati traded Hendrickson, that would be just the second time in this century that a player leads the NFL in sacks and is then traded the following season. Kansas City traded Pro Football Hall of Famer Jared Allen to Minnesota in 2008 at 26 years old, and he went on to make first-team All-Pro three times.
None of those All-Pro seasons happened after age 30, but Allen did notch 12 and 11.5 sacks at 30 and 31. He profiles closely to Hendrickson on the health front as well. Allen played in 15-plus games during 11 of his 12 NFL seasons.
The four-year age gap is obviously a key difference, but the precedent is there that an already durable star talent is not likely to fall off a cliff as soon as 30 hits. Trading Hendrickson at this point in the calendar makes little sense, unless Cincinnati can bring back a talent to help this season and draft capital.
They couldn’t even nail down the latter in the spring, let alone that key player, in a portion of the calendar where it’s much easier to trade for contracts with so much more cap space available for each team across the league.
Minnesota gave up a first and two third-round picks for Allen, who had 14.5 sacks that next season to Kansas City’s 10 total as a team. There’s no indication any team would give up a first for Hendrickson, let alone a player and additional picks as well. The Chiefs turned two of those picks into Jamaal Charles and Brandon Albert, but they were a part of just two playoff appearances in the next seven seasons.
“We are not going to trade Trey. We are working on getting it done,” Bengals President Mike Brown said in July. “We like Trey as a person; he’s a good guy, but when it comes to these negotiations, and we have been through a few of them with him, he pushes hard, he gets emotional. We’ve never had an easy time of it, but there’s one thing that is consistent: it always gets done.”
Nothing’s done yet, and Cincinnati has a little less than three weeks before another contract situation threatens to derail another season-opening stretch.
