Trey Hendrickson is coming back to Cincinnati in the most charged way possible. After signing with the Ravens in free agency this offseason, the former Bengals pass rusher will face his old team twice, including a New Year's Eve game under the lights at Paycor Stadium and a Week 7 road trip to Baltimore.
Joe Burrow said Tuesday that meeting Hendrickson will “definitely be fun,” and added that his former teammate landing in Baltimore was “not very surprising.” Hendrickson spent five seasons with the Bengals and left behind a résumé that included four Pro Bowl selections and one first-team All-Pro nod, but also a run of contract disputes, trade requests and a training camp holdout before he reached the open market in March.
The Baltimore games matter beyond the reunion. The Bengals went 1-3 in Baltimore over the last four seasons, and the rivalry has repeatedly delivered tight finishes and bruising consequences. Burrow said any time the Bengals play the Ravens, “that one is circled,” recalling the long-running edge between Cincinnati and Lamar Jackson’s team since he entered the league in 2020. He pointed to the battle that has defined the matchup for years and said, “That goes back years when Lamar and I were a lot younger. That’s always a battle when we get after it.”
The New Year's Eve meeting will be the first time the Bengals have hosted the Ravens in primetime during the regular season since 2018, a stage that fits a rivalry that has already produced enough drama to fill a season. Cincinnati’s recent trips to Baltimore have included a close loss in 2022, Burrow’s season-ending wrist injury there in 2023 and another narrow defeat in 2024, before the Bengals later beat the Ravens 32-14 on Thanksgiving. That history gives the return game more edge than a typical division matchup.
Burrow did not sound interested in pretending the Hendrickson move changes the emotional charge. “I know Trey. I love Trey. I just know how he operates,” he said, before turning back to the bigger picture. “We’re gonna have a really good team, obviously. He’ll have a really good team,” Burrow said. “Hopefully, that’ll be one that's leading up to the playoffs.”
The Bengals’ schedule only sharpens the stakes. Their Week 14 matchup with the Chiefs on Dec. 13 will be America’s Game of the Week on Fox Sports, and it will be just the second time since 2024 that Burrow and Patrick Mahomes have met since the 2022 AFC Championship game. Burrow is 3-2 against Mahomes overall, and every one of those meetings has been decided by three points or less, another reminder that Cincinnati’s biggest games are usually the ones with the least room for error.
For Hendrickson, the first return to Cincinnati comes with all the usual baggage of a homecoming stripped of sentimentality. For Burrow and the Bengals, it is another chapter in a rivalry that keeps finding ways to matter, whether it is on the road in Week 7, under the lights on New Year’s Eve or in the kind of late-season game that shapes everything after it.
