Would a trade for Trey Hendrickson make sense for Detroit Lions?

Over the course of an 18-week schedule, the NFL season feels like both a sprint and a marathon simultaneously. It’s a war of attrition for months, but that sense of urgency never sits out of sight or out of mind.

And that much speaks to the Detroit Lions season right now with the litany of injuries they’re dealing with after a victory in Week 3 over the Arizona Cardinals. Moving to 2-1 on the season alleviates what could have been the tension of the opposite outcome, but injuries to multiple starters that could last anywhere from weeks to the majority of the season loom large.

Three injuries in particular, however, are going to test the depth of Detroit’s defense this early in the season. Derrick Barnes looks like he’s going to be out for quite some time, as well as Marcus Davenport who suffered what is likely a season-ending elbow injury. On top of that, Alim McNeill is going to be day-to-day with a shoulder injury, and considering the Lions play on “Monday Night Football” this week—and then are on their bye week after that—the team could very well opt to be careful with the key defender and give him an extended chance to recover.

With so many injuries to the Lions defensive front—the team is hoping to get Alex Anzalone back from a concussion he suffered in Week 2, and hoping Brian Branch can make his way through concussion protocol as well—players like Levi Onwuzurike, Mekhi Wingo, and Josh Paschal are going to be called upon to play bigger roles than anybody had anticipated prior to training camp. Onwuzurike’s training camp was the surprise of the summer, and Wingo has had some intriguing moments. He’s still a rookie transitioning to the league. As for Paschal, he was playing into the fourth quarter of preseason games, and only after the injuries on Sunday did he manage to play 18 snaps (31% of defensive plays), a game-high distribution for the third-year defensive lineman.

General manager Brad Holmes took a swing on Davenport. It was a low-risk move with considerable upside, but the greatest ability in the NFL remains availability. It’s hard to fault Holmes’ approach to upgrading a premier position like defensive end when you take their draft position into account—originally the 29th pick, eight spots after Chop Robinson was the fourth defensive end selected. In free agency, top edge rushers just don’t become available… but sometimes circumstances change.

It’s Week 4 of the NFL season, and the Cincinnati Bengals, owned and controlled by the notoriously cheap Mike Brown, are winless. Only four of 162 teams that started 0-3 (2.5 percent) have managed to make the playoffs since 1990—and only one team has done it since 2000 (2018 Houston Texans). With the odds stacked against the Bengals, it might be time to start looking toward the future with players who might not fit their timeline. One of those players could be defensive end Trey Hendrickson, a player with ties to Detroit’s coaching staff.

Hendrickson last crossed paths with both Lions coach Dan Campbell and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn when the two were in New Orleans with the Saints from 2017-2020. The former Florida Atlantic product developed from a third-round selection with just 6.5 sacks in his first three seasons to become one of the more underrated pass rushers in the NFL. From 2020-2023, spanning time in both New Orleans and Cincinnati, Hendrickson has 53.0 sacks, 101 quarterback hits, and 265 pressures over 63 games. In 2023, Hendrickson was second only to Myles Garrett in NFL’s Next Gen Stat “Get-Off,” the average time it takes for a pass rusher to cross the line of scrimmage, at 0.70 seconds. He was t-10th among defenders in QB pressures under three seconds. His QB pressure rate (17.1%) was t-second behind only Micah Parsons.

Lining Hendrickson up opposite Aidan Hutchinson would make for a devastating pass rush in Detroit, but why would the Bengals ever want to part with such a player? For starters, Hendrickson does turn 30 in December of this year, and that puts him at an advanced age in the NFL, but that alone isn’t enough to move on from such a pass-rushing talent. After signing a four-year, $60 million contract in 2021, the Bengals and Hendrickson agreed on a one-year extension worth an additional $21 million to keep him in Cincinnati through the 2025 season… but after outperforming his contract, Hendrickson requested a trade in April after first seeking a long-term deal in March of this past offseason.

After a few weeks, Hendrickson agreed to return to the Bengals without any long-term extension in place, a move he said he made with his family in mind. But if Hendrickson were to finish out the 2024 season with the Bengals—who have yet to sign superstar wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase to an extension either—the pass rusher is going to find himself back to square one with less security and a penny-pinching owner on the other side of the negotiating table.

For the Lions, a move for Hendrickson wouldn’t be cheap, but it’s hard to gauge just how much it would cost Detroit. Matthew Judon was traded from the New England Patriots to the Atlanta Falcons for a 2025 third-round pick, but Judon was 32 at the time of the deal and coming off a torn bicep that cut his 2023 season short after just four games. Khalil Mack was 27 and arguably the league’s top pass rusher at the time of his trade from the Raiders to the Bears in 2018, so the multiple picks including consecutive first-round selections in 2019 and 2020, is too rich. Maybe the Commanders getting a second-round pick for Montez Sweat at last year’s trade deadline is where the bidding starts, but the Bengals could easily find plenty of suitors for Hendrickson, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see additional picks be needed to facilitate a trade.

Does that rich of a move make sense for this Lions team right now? With their window open and expectations never greater, does a bold trade like this one align with the team’s bigger picture in mind? Or is this an overreaction to some untimely and unfortunate injuries to their defensive front?

Pass rushers like Hendrickson do not become available often, especially in the prime of their careers, and there wouldn’t be two people on the same coaching staff more capable of making an informed decision about Hendrickson’s fit and football character than Campbell and Glenn. If Cincinnati is willing to start a soft reset, and Detroit is willing to pony up for Hendrickson, the timing could be just right for the Lions.