Browns: Cleveland should pursue Trey Hendrickson with J.J. Watt off the table

The Browns lost out on J.J. Watt but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t guys out there that warrant consideration, like Trey Hendrickson.

The Browns and 30 other teams lost out on the J.J. Watt sweepstakes. Still considered a top-50 player in the NFL by PFF, Watt was a guy many teams saw as an immediate impact player. So his signing with the Arizona Cardinals really miffed a lot of people; Browns fans included. Still, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any other talent at the defensive end possession. One of the more notable names worth taking a shot at would be Saints DE Trey Hendrickson.

Hendrickson had a breakout year in 2020, recording 13.5 sacks and doing so against some of the best left tackles in football. Not only is he incredibly strong, getting a good number of sacks just off of bull-rushing guys, but he has incredible hands, able to shed blocks and use his agility to chase down guys.

The Saints want to keep him but are so far over the cap, even if with Drew Brees restructuring his contract, that they probably won’t be able to. He only has one year of this type of production to his name and the Saints may not want to overly invest in someone who could be just having a fluke of a year.

His usage did go up over the last four years, and he played more in 2020 than he had in his first two years combined. He was in on 53% of the defensive plays in 2020, while in 2019 he only had 38%. In 2018 he was in on only 18%, while in 2017 he had 27% of the snaps at his position.

Clearly, Hendrickson proved what he can do when given the opportunity. With an improved defense, including a better secondary, and a healthy Myles Garrett, Hendrickson could be a future All-Pro in the making.