Last year, the Bengals gave defensive end Trey Hendrickson a one-year extension with $21 million in new money. This year, Hendrickson wants a new contract or a trade.

To no surprise, the Bengals aren’t inclined to trade him.

Via Paul Dehner Jr. of TheAthletic.com, the Bengals have “zero interest” in trading Hendrickson to a new team.

Whether they’ll adjust his contract is another issue. He’s due to make $14.8 million in 2024 and $15.8 million in 2025. That’s below half of the current market, and he had 17.5 sacks in 2023.

Some would say his agent should have done a better job with last year’s negotiation. And while that might be true, the player isn’t happy. And the situation is out of whack. The Bengals should consider fixing it.

Hendrickson supposedly is considering retiring. While that might work with other teams, we’ve seen this movie before in Cincinnati. With quarterback Carson Palmer. If Jason Campbell doesn’t break a collarbone two days before the 2011 trade deadline, Palmer might still be on the Bengals’ reserve-retired list.

And, yes, no new deal can be done until the one-year anniversary of his last one. That’s just three months away. If the Bengals made the wink-nod commitment now to do the deal later, that would surely be good enough for Hendrickson.