by showing up<\/a>.<\/p>\nHis fines of $50,000 for each day missed can\u2019t be waived, regardless of whether the Bengals even would have forgiven them. And the number would have kept increasing, with no impact on the team\u2019s overall mindset.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Hendrickson would have lost game checks of $877,000 each, if he\u2019d held out into the regular season. The practical loss would have been more than that, based on whatever the team\u2019s best offer on a new deal would have been. (Months ago, we heard the Bengals were willing to pay him $28 million per year. He\u2019s currently at $15.8 million in base salary.)<\/p>\n
If Hendrickson hadn\u2019t shown up, the Bengals would have allowed him to become this year\u2019s version of Haason Reddick. That\u2019s probably why Hendrickson reported; he knew the holdout wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n
And while Hendrickson may be inclined to deliberately not practice after showing up, the Bengals may not be willing to play along with that. Last year, they imposed fines on receiver Ja\u2019Marr Chase during his hold in. (His fines could be waived.) If Hendrickson refuses to set foot on the practice field, the Bengals may choose to fine him.<\/p>\n
Also, if Hendrickson doesn\u2019t practice due to an \u201cinjury,\u201d the Bengals may be willing to call him on it.<\/p>\n
The bigger point is this: Now that Hendrickson is there, he won\u2019t be leaving. If he does and if he stays away for five days, the Bengals can shut him down for the full season and owe him nothing.<\/p>\n
Would that hurt in the short term? Yes. Over the long haul, it would reinforce the intended message.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re in charge. We run the show. We dictate the terms. And we\u2019ll be here long after you and every other player on the roster has exited the game of football.<\/p>\n
Hendrickson\u2019s only play at this point is to get ready to play football, and to be prepared to take the last, best offer the team makes before Week 1. Even if it\u2019s short of the APY he wants. And even if only the first year is fully-guaranteed at signing.<\/p>\n
Whatever label is applied by Hendrickson\u2019s camp, the truth is that he caved. And that\u2019s fine. <\/p>\n
With the Bengals, it was the only play he could make.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most teams, withholding services via a holdout eventually creates the pressure needed to get a deal done.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-46642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}