[sendtonews_embed video_id=”ebfUF2cWJU-1124605-7498″]
Trey Hendrickson was one of the breakout players of the year for the New Orleans Saints, finishing the regular season tied for second-best in the NFL for sacks (13.5) after logging just 7.5 sacks in his first 34 games. And it couldn’t arrive at a better time with his low-cost rookie contract set to expire in March.
That fact isn’t lost on Saints general manager Mickey Loomis, who set his expectations early on during a media availability session on Wednesday, saying: “He’ll be an attractive piece for everyone around the league.”
Loomis added that, certainly, the Saints want to keep Hendrickson in the building — he’s one of their biggest draft-and-develop success stories in recent years, and was clearly important to the team’s success in 2020. But he can’t say or do anything actionable until the NFL has set its 2021 salary cap, allowing his team to go through an obstacle course of restructures, releases, and maybe a trade or two before they can start re-signing anyone.
There aren’t many situations comparable to this in recent memory, but consider Shaquil Barrett as a similar talent. He had 14.0 career sacks going into his breakout 2019 season with 19.5 sacks, before falling back to earth in 2020 with just 8.0 takedowns. That might be a more realistic target for Hendrickson to hit rather than averaging double-digit sacks each year.
If the money isn’t there, the Saints could re-sign him. If it is, they can let Hendrickson walk away and return another compensatory draft pick in 2022. Issuing him the franchise tag feels like a long shot given how hard it is to work around a fully-guaranteed cap hit north of $15 million. It depends on where the Saints project Hendrickson going from here and whether they believe he can keep up this level of production.
So toss it onto the pile of story arcs and subplots to monitor in the weeks and months ahead. If Loomis’ early take is any indication, the Saints are just as curious to see how this plays out for Hendrickson as the rest of us.
