Cincinnati and Baltimore, who square off Oct. 25 at M&T Bank Stadium, are already familiar with each other as AFC North rivals. But there may be even more contempt with the familiarity of a certain former Bengal now with the Ravens.
Trey Hendrickson, the former NFL sack champion with the Bengals, defected to the Ravens in March as an unrestricted free agent. The player who was a difference-maker for the Bengals for more than five years changed sides in the rivalry and now faces his old team for the first time.
Hendrickson played 79 games for the Bengals, including seven playoff games. He amassed 64.5 sacks and led the NFL in sacks in 2024 (17.5). In his final years in Cincinnati, there were contract disputes and injuries, but his success with the team was undeniable.
The Bengals on Oct. 19 seemed to want to avoid too much discussion of facing their former top pass-rusher.
"He's a good player," Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said. "They got a lot of good players in their defense, and we got to put together a great plan and be able to execute it to give ourselves the best chance to win."
Hendrickson in 2026 has 160 snaps for Baltimore across four games. He has two sacks and 14 quarterback hurries.
Hendrickson is also still recovering from in-season surgery to repair a hand fracture, according to multiple reports. The surgery recovery forced Hendrickson to miss two games, but he returned Oct. 18 against the Cleveland Browns and notched a sack.
During an Oct. 19 news conference, first-year Ravens head coach Jesse Minter was noncommittal but optimistic about Hendrickson's status coming out of the loss to the Browns.
“I think that's an ongoing thing of just making sure that it's going the right way," Minter said. "But I feel pretty good about how (Hendrickson) got out of the game. ... For his first game back dealing with that, I thought he rushed well. From a rush-coverage standpoint, I thought our pass rush took a good step in the right direction for us going forward.”
Like Taylor, Bengals offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. seemed to want to tamp down any emphasis on his possible matchup with Hendrickson, saying: "I don't want to look too deep into that necessarily."
"It'll be a lot of fun. I've got a lot of respect for him," Brown said. "Obviously, everything he did here, helping us win games. He's got a wide variety of abilities to get after the passer. ... He's elite at what he does."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Once a key to Bengals success, team now preparing to face Trey Hendrickson