‘Everybody Got a Little Piece’ – Bengals Livid Over Trey Hendrickson Penalty Before Hugging It Out

Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson knew he had made a mistake before Indianapolis Colts quarterback Gardner Minshew had gotten off the Paycor Stadium turf on Sunday.

But that didn’t mean his coaches weren’t going to let him hear about it as well.

“I let him know,” defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo said.

“I think everybody got a little piece of him on that one,” head coach Zac Taylor added. “It was a good therapy session, and we all just moved on to the next play.”

Bengals Say All Is Forgiven After Trey Hendrickson’s Bad Penalty

Unfortunately for Hendrickson’s defensive teammates, there were 14 next plays before they were able to take a break on the sideline, which is where they would have been headed had Hendrickson not taken two steps and hit Minshew in the back after the quarterback had thrown a nine-yard checkdown on 3rd-and-14.

The Colts converted Hendrickson’s penalty into a 17-play, 79-yard touchdown drive to cut the Cincinnati lead in half. Then 25 seconds later Indianapolis linebacker Ronnie Harrison returned a Jake Browning interception 36 yards for a touchdown and — poof — a 14-point lead had disappeared.

MORE: ‘They Were Just Guessing’ — Bengals Broke Tendencies vs. Colts

“Nobody felt worse than him,” Anarumo said of Hendrickson. “He doesn’t want to do that. It was clearly late. He hit the guy in the back. But sometimes when those guys – and I’m not making excuses – but he’s coming off of the blocker and kind of lost where the ball was and he hits him. That’s what he explained to me.”

A couple hours later, all was forgiven.

“I gave him a big hug at the end of the game and said, ‘You made up for it,’” Anarumo said.

A menace from the first snap Sunday when he bull-rushed Colts left tackle Bernhard Raimann and walked him back into Minshew for a sack, Hendrickson had an added intensity in the second half when he added a second sack.

He came within a split second of getting a third, settling instead of a pressure that created the first official interception of B.J. Hill’s career (Hill had a game-changing one in the 2021 AFC Championship Game at Kansas City, but postseason stats are a different category).

Stacking ‘em in the win column 👏

Locker Room Celly | @KetteringHealth pic.twitter.com/WtJGixOEeF

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 10, 2023

“He’s as competitive as they come,” Taylor said of Hendrickson. “He’s playing through the whistle on every single play. Sometimes it doesn’t go our way. I know that he owned up to (the penalty) very quickly and moved on.

“Does he continue to play with an extra chip on his shoulder because of that and wants to make up for it? I think he plays with a pretty big chip on his shoulder every play regardless.”

Hendrickson leads the team and is tied for third in the league with 13.5 sacks, a half sack shy of his own official team record (the Bengals list Coy Bacon’s 22 sacks at the record in 1976, but that was before the statistic was recognized as official by the league).

Hendrickson could have 14.5 had Minshew’s arm not started moving forward a millisecond before he hit him on the play that was a ruled a pass and Hill interception rather than a sack and fumble.

And just as Hendrickson’s penalty erased a three and out for the Bengals defense, he’s been on the receiving end of stat erasures by teammates.

It’s happened four times this year, costing Hendrickson three sacks and the current league lead. All four of those incidents came in the first month of the season.

In Week 2 against Baltimore, Hendrickson had a sack negated by defensive tackle Zach Carter’s illegal use of hands penalty. And later in that game, he had a shared sack with defensive end Sam Hubbard wiped out when cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt drew a flag for illegal contact.

One week later on Monday night against the Los Angeles Rams, Hendrickson had a sack of Matthew Stafford erased by a Hubbard facemask penalty. And a little bit later his shared sack with linebacker Logan Wilson went by the wayside on another Taylor-Britt penalty for illegal use of hands.

Despite those lost stats, Hendrickson ranks third in pressure percentage and seventh in total pressures.

MORE: ‘Have One More Drink’ — Zac Taylor Jokes to Cincinnati Faithful

“Whatever a great pass rusher looks like, Trey has all of the qualities of a great rusher,” Anarumo said. “He’s powerful. He can run right down the middle, he can beat you off the edge with speed, and he’s nimble enough to work the games and stuff. So that’s what the great ones do. And they’re ball aware, so that it’s always not just sack, it’s sack fumble. He is coming over the top and getting those balls out.”

Both of Hendrickson’s forced fumbles have come in the fourth quarter of games this year. And his seven fourth-quarter sacks lead the league.

There are five teams that don’t have seven sacks from all players combined in the fourth quarter.

“It’s like any of those great rushers,” Anarumo said. “Once the run has been eliminated, then they can just time it up, especially at home. They can time up the cadence, time up the snap and go.”

We’ll find out Saturday if Hendrickson got fined for his roughing penalty against Minshew. But based on how he played the rest of the game Sunday, both he and the Bengals as a whole might view it as worth it.

Want to predict the rest of the 2023 season with our FREE NFL Playoff Predictor? Looking for the most up-to-date NFL standings? What about a breakdown of team depth charts or the NFL schedule? Pro Football Network has you covered with that and more!