Joe Mixon’s future with the Texans was never in doubt, but his future in the NFL remains in question.
The team made it official on Friday, releasing the running back a day after he asked for the move.
The Texans traded for their RB1 this week, a move that will become official next week, when they worked out a deal with the Lions for David Montgomery.
Mixon, meanwhile, becomes a free agent. The question is: Will he play again?
Mixon did not play last season, because of an off-field foot injury that remains a mystery. Texans General Manager Nick Caserio revealed at the Scouting Combine that Mixon underwent surgery for his injury this offseason but would not elaborate.
The Texans save $8.5 million by parting ways.
Mixon, who turns 30 this summer, made the Pro Bowl in his first season with the Texans, rushing for 1,016 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2024.
He has 7,428 rushing yards and 60 rushing touchdowns since the Bengals made him a second-round pick in 2017.
Former Bengals offensive lineman Willie Anderson underwent a successful kidney transplant this week.
Anderson, 50, posted his gratitude on social media.
“God is great, man,” Anderson said. “Everything went well, kidney’s well.”
He announced last month that he would undergo the transplant 10 years after being diagnosed with kidney disease. Anderson’s girlfriend was his donor.
“I appreciate the prayers and support! I hung on every word y’all sent me!” Anderson said. “Hopefully my ordeal can help others.”
Anderson is in the Bengals’ Ring of Honor and was a Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist again this year.
The Bengals are not using a franchise or transition tag on defensive end Trey Hendrickson and that means Hendrickson will be free to move on to another team as a free agent when the new league year gets underway next week.
Hendrickson made it clear that he intends to do exactly that on Tuesday afternoon.
In a post to his Instagram account, Hendrickson expressed gratitude to the Bengals, his teammates, coaches and the team’s fans for his five years in Cincinnati. He called the city home “now and forever” before ending the farewell message.
Hendrickson posted 61 sacks in his 72 regular season games with the Bengals and added 3.5 more during the team’s run to the Super Bowl after the 2021 season. That pass rushing ability should make him a coveted player once teams can start negotiating with free agents around the league next week.
This year, Trey Hendrickson will be able to move on from the Bengals.
According to multiple reports, Cincinnati will not use the franchise tag on Hendrickson before the Tuesday afternoon deadline.
Hendrickson, 31, went through a long negotiation over his contract with the team last offseason, which resulted in Hendrickson getting a raise just before the season. But he did not have any more years added to his deal.
Due to injury, Hendrickson was able to play just seven games in 2025, recording 4.0 sacks with three tackles for loss and eight quarterback hits.
In 2024, Hendrickson made his fourth consecutive Pro Bowl, having recorded a league-leading 17.5 sacks with 19 tackles for loss, and a career-high 36 quarterback hits.
Hendrickson joined the Bengals in 2021 after spending his first four seasons with New Orleans. But at this point, it appears Hendrickson will be headed elsewhere for 2026 after five years with the club.
In 117 career games with 88 starts, Hendrickson has recorded 81.0 sacks with 74 tackles for loss and 163 quarterback hits.
The NFL is a deadline-driven business. And an important annual deadline arrives today.
The two-week window for applying the franchise or transition tag closes at 4:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
There’s really no reason for a two-week period. All that matters is the end, not the beginning. And while there’s some value in applying the tag before the Scouting Combine as a way to short-circuit tampering efforts, only two teams put the word out before things got rolling in Indianapolis that key players would be off-limits — Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts Sr. and Cowboys receiver George Pickens.
Will there be more? Obviously, if any will happen, it will happen today.
The players to watch are Colts quarterback Daniel Jones (and, if they work out a deal with him today, Colts receiver Alec Pierce), Jets running back Breece Hall, and Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson.
If no additional tags are applied, it will be the second straight year with only two. And the two applied in 2025 were the fewest since 2006.
Time will tell. And the clock is ticking. We’ll know at 4:00 p.m. ET who is, and isn’t, blocked from the open market by the franchise or transition tag.
The Bengals got a deal done with right guard Dalton Risner on Monday and Risner credited one of his teammates with helping to pave the way to the agreement.
Risner joined the Bengals last August and made 11 starts in his first year with the team. A number of those starts came with Joe Burrow at quarterback for Cincinnati and Risner said on Monday that he believes the quarterback’s push to keep him in Cincinnati led to the new one-year deal.
“This deal wouldn’t have been done without guys like Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow pushed for me this whole offseason,” Risner said, via the team’s website. “He checked in. He wanted me there. Amarius Mims was outspoken. I had so many people. My offensive line coach. Zac Taylor. I just felt like I had so many people that pulled for me that I don’t think this would have gotten done without them.”
Re-signing Risner means that the Bengals are set to have their five primary offensive linemen back for another season and it stands to reason that Burrow thinks that arrangement will be a good thing for his pass protection during the 2026 season. That would be a good thing for Burrow’s health and having him around for the entire season should also be a plus for the Bengals as a whole.
Dalton Risner joined the Bengals shortly before the start of the 2025 season, but he won’t be waiting nearly as long to make his plans for 2026.
Risner’s wife announced on X.com Monday that her husband will remain with the Bengals. Risner is listed as No. 81 on PFT’s list of this year’s top free agents.
No terms of Risner’s agreement with the Bengals were included in his wife’s announcement.
Risner signed with the Bengals in late August and made 11 starts at right guard during the 2025 season. Risner started 19 games in two seasons with the Vikings before moving on to Cincinnati and started 62 games for the Broncos over his first four seasons in the league.
UPDATE 9:13 a.m. ET: Risner’s agents announced that it is a one-year deal worth up to $5 million.
Teams making decisions about picking up the fifth-year options on the contracts of their 2023 first-round picks now know how much that will cost.
The NFL revealed the values on Friday afternoon. There are four levels of compensation at each position. Players who have made multiple Pro Bowls as an original selection are at the top followed by players with one Pro Bowl selection and players who have hit playing time milestones before reaching the lowest level.
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud were the first two picks of that draft and both of them reached the playing time level of compensation. That will leave them with fully guaranteed salaries of $25.904 million if the teams decide to exercise the options, but longer-term extensions are also a possibility now that they have finished their third seasons.
The full list of 2023 first-rounders — there were 31 that year because the Dolphins were stripped of their pick — and their fifth-year option salaries appears below:
1. Panthers QB Bryce Young — $25.904 million (playing time).
2. Texans QB C.J. Stroud — $25.904 million (playing time).
3. Texans DE Will Anderson — $21.512 (Pro Bowl).
4. Colts QB Anthony Richardson — $22.483 million (base).
5. Seahawks CB Devon Witherspoon — $21.161 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
6. Cardinals OT Paris Johnson — $19.072 million (playing time).
7. Raiders DE Tyree Wilson — $14.475 million (base).
8. Falcons RB Bijan Robinson — $11.323 million (Pro Bowl).
9. Eagles DT Jalen Carter — $27.127 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
10. Bears OT Darnell Wright — $19.072 million (playing time).
11. Titans OG Peter Skoronski — $19.072 million (playing time).
12. Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs — $14.293 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
13. Packers DE Lukas Van Ness — $14.475 million (base).
14. Steelers OT Broderick Jones — $19.072 million (playing time).
15. Jets DE Will McDonald — $14.475 million (base).
16. Rams CB Emmanuel Forbes — $12.633 million (base).
17. Patriots CB Christian Gonzalez — $18.119 million (Pro Bowl).
18. Lions LB Jack Campbell — $21.925 million (Pro Bowl).
19. Buccaneers DT Calijah Kancey — $15.451 (playing time).
20. Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba — $23.852 million (Pro Bowl).
21. Chargers WR Quentin Johnston — $18 million (playing time).
22. Ravens WR Zay Flowers — $27.298 million (multiple Pro Bowls).
23. Vikings WR Jordan Addison — $18 million (playing time).
24. Giants CB Deonte Banks — $12.633 million (base).
25. Bills TE Dalton Kincaid — $8.162 million (base).
26. Jets DT Mazi Smith — $13.391 million (base) Smith was traded to the Jets by the Cowboys.
27. Jaguars OT Anton Harrison — $19.072 million (playing time).
28. Bengals DE Myles Murphy — $14.475 million (base).
29. Saints DT Bryan Bresee — $13.391 million (base).
30. Eagles LB Nolan Smith — $13.752 million (base).
31. Chiefs Felix Anudike-Uzomah — $14.475 million (base).
For nearly two decades, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh were head coaches in the AFC North.
Really, the division was one of the most stable in football, as there had not been a coaching change since the Browns hired Kevin Stefanski in 2020.
But that changed in a hurry in January, as the Browns fired Stefanski, the Ravens fired Harbaugh, and Tomlin resigned from the Steelers.
That leaves Cincinnati’s Zac Taylor, hired in 2019, as the AFC North’s longest-tenured coach.
“Well, it’s strange,” Taylor said at the scouting combine this week when asked how it feels to be the most senior coach in the division. “You know, I’ve got a lot of respect for those three guys I’ve been competing against the last few years, and obviously great coaches and [they] have had a lot of success. So, it’s a little strange, but I’m sure that I’ll get used to it very quickly.”
How has the landscape of the division changed now?
“Not for me to sit here and say today,” Taylor said. “Maybe those teams will evolve in different ways than they have over the last couple years. Kind of impossible for me to say but exciting for us. We’ve got continuity. We’ve got to capitalize on that and continue to build and move forward.”
The Bengals do have continuity at some of the most important positions, with Taylor, quarterback Joe Burrow, offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher, and defensive coordinator Al Golden all returning for 2026. We’ll see if that continuity turns into on-field success after Cincinnati finished 6-11 in 2025.
Defensive end Trey Hendrickson was looking for a long-term deal with the Bengals for the last couple of years, but never got the contract he desired before playing out the final year of his current pact in 2025.
There’s no sign that the Bengals and Hendrickson have made progress toward a multi-year agreement and the team is keeping the door open to extending their hold on Hendrickson via the franchise tag this offseason. Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin said at a Tuesday press conference that the prospect of the team using a tag on Hendrickson, who ended the season on injured reserve after core muscle surgery, is “not something I’m gonna talk about.”
“I don’t throw anything on or off the table with Trey, and we’re excited about attacking this offseason,” Tobin said, via Ben Baby of ESPN.com. “We have resources to attack the offseason in a big way, and we want to do that.”
A tag would come with a salary of $30.2 million for the 2026 season and Tobin was asked about the prospect of tagging Hendrickson with the intent to trade him to another club.
“All trades are difficult,” Tobin said. “You got to find a partner and you have to find somebody that you have to have some cooperation with your players that you’re talking about this with. Trades can be complicated and that hypothetical scenario would be very complicated.”
Hendrickson has been with the Bengals since 2021. He posted 57 sacks in his first four seasons before notching four in his seven 2025 appearances.
