No, Bengals shouldn’t be in potential Derrick Henry sweepstakes
One doesn’t have to look far online to find it suggested the Cincinnati Bengals should go after Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry.
This, after a report surfaced saying the Titans were shopping their star running back at the scouting combine over the weekend.
But no matter how one sells the idea of a trade or what odds might suggest, there’s little reason for the Bengals to get in on the action.
The Bengals already have a problem of their own with the unknown future of Joe Mixon. Wiggling out of his contract with a post-June 1 designation will save the team roughly $10 million.
Henry is a fun idea, of course. He’s the well-known bulldozer with 78 touchdowns on a 4.8 per-carry average since 2016 and largely responsible for Tennessee’s playoff contention status each year.
But he’s also one year shy of that dreaded age of 30 and has one year left on his deal at a $16 million cap hit. He missed nine games in 2021 while on pace for 400-plus carries and has been statically slowing.
In fact, there’s an argument that Henry isn’t a viable option even if he slips to free agency. Cincinnati’s exact problem with Mixon is his struggles in pass protection. Ideally, coaches want to find multiple do-it-all backs this offseason in order to keep the offense unpredictable and versatile.
Still, for Bengals fans, welcome to life as a contender. Everything the star quarterback does is under a microscope. Every major free agent will be “linked” to the team. Etc. This is another one of those examples, though it’s better reserved for a video game like Madden than anything else.
