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Jamison Hensley
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Baltimore Ravens safety Ar’Darius Washington suffered a torn Achilles while conditioning, a source confirmed to ESPN, putting his 2025 season in jeopardy.
Washington started a career-high 12 games last season (including playoffs). He was expected to play a pivotal role on defense even after Baltimore drafted safety Malaki Starks in the first round last month.
“Words can’t describe how I feel right now, up thinking all night why me? Why now? All I want to do is prove I’m one of the best in business yr after yr. But God said not right now, so until then we wait,” Washington posted to Instagram Wednesday.
After going undrafted in 2021, Washington overcame an injury-filled start to his career as well as his size (5-foot-8, 180 pounds) to become one of Baltimore’s biggest surprises last season, when he stabilized a struggling secondary by replacing Marcus Williams in Week 8. With Washington starting the final 10 games, the Ravens allowed 214 yards passing, which ranked eighth in the NFL over that span.
“Ar’Darius is a great example of a guy who got a chance and ran with it,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said in January.
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Washington, 25, finished with a career-best 64 tackles last season, to go with two interceptions and eight passes defensed. Known for making big plays, Washington forced then-
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Ben Baby
CINCINNATI — Trey Hendrickson will need a new contract if he’s going to step on the field for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2025.
The All-Pro defensive end met with reporters Tuesday during the team’s offseason workout and spoke at length about his current contract dispute with the team. Hendrickson is entering the final year of his current contract but is seeking a long-term deal.
Wearing a golf cap and a blue polo T-shirt, Hendrickson met with reporters for more than 20 minutes to address the situation while the team wrapped up its voluntary workout.
The relationship between Cincinnati’s star edge rusher and the front office reached a boiling point Monday. According to Hendrickson, Bengals coach Zac Taylor sent him a text message Monday that missing the team’s mandatory minicamp, which is exactly four weeks away, will result in a fine.
That prompted Hendrickson to voice his side of the situation.
“We’ve tried to keep it as least amount as personal as possible, but at some point in this process it’s becomes personal,” Hendrickson said. “Being sent 30 days before mandatory camp, or how many ever days it is, that if I don’t show up I will be fined alludes to the fact that something won’t get done in that time frame.”
Hendrickson, 30, said the message from Taylor prompted his statement to ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday, in which Hendrickson refuted a report that the Bengals had been in communication with him since the NFL draft in April.
The four-time Pro Bowler said the business negotiations started to take a personal turn over the past week.
“And when there’s a lack of communication in any relationship, if it’s business or personal relationship, lack of communication leads to animosity, and that leaves my narrative only to me with no clear direction,” Hendrickson said.
Since joining Cincinnati in 2021 as a free agent, Hendrickson has become one of the best players in the league. Last season, he led the NFL with 17.5 sacks and, along with Ja’Marr Chase, helped Cincinnati break a nine-year drought of not having an All-Pro selection.
In March, the Bengals granted Hendrickson the ability to seek a trade. On Tuesday, he said he wanted to clear up the misconception that there was a predetermined return that Hendrickson believed he could fetch in a trade.
“There’s no way of knowing that,” Hendrickson said. “We were told what they were looking for and if it was five first-round picks, I would have agreed.”
Hendrickson said the team is pushing for a short-term contract while he has maintained his stance of wanting long-term security in Cincinnati.
There has also been several questions about why Hendrickson has continually sought action on his deal. In 2023, Hendrickson signed a one-year extension on the four-year, $60 million deal he originally signed with the team. Last offseason, he requested a long-term deal and then a trade before he ultimately participated in offseason workouts.
Hendrickson casted doubt on his ability to explore in free agency if the original deal he signed in 2021 had expired and he didn’t sign the extension.
“I think if I did not take that deal, we’re talking franchise tagging the 30-year-old, right?” Hendrickson said. “That’s the magic number.”
As things stand, Hendrickson is set to make $15.8 million in base salary this season. Hendrickson noted how much the market has changed over the last 12 months, especially in light of Cleveland Browns star Myles Garrett resetting the market this offseason with a contract extension that averages $40 million annually.
What happened this week has escalated the tension between Hendrickson and the front office that has simmered through the offseason. In recent months, the native Floridian has taken exception to comments made by the front office at league events regarding his status with the team.
“There are unprovoked shark attacks and there’s provoked shark attacks,” Hendrickson said.
With his comments Tuesday, Cincinnati’s star defender is no longer looking to tread water while trying to find a long-term deal.
Hendrickson did offer the franchise praise and said Taylor, the team’s sixth-year coach, has been honest with him through the process. And as for the relationship between himself and the decision-makers in Cincinnati, Hendrickson believes it can be salvaged. He pointed to Garrett, who requested a trade before later signing his extension with the Browns.
“That relationship will repair with time,” Hendrickson said. “And same with this. This is just the uncomfortable business side that we’ve unfortunately had to deal with for the last couple years.
“And quite frankly, I think we’re all spent.”
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Ryan McFadden
Jaylon Smith will attempt to resurrect his career in Las Vegas. The veteran linebacker has signed with the Raiders after a weekend tryout at rookie minicamp.
The team made Smith’s signing official Monday.
Smith, 29, last played in 2023, appearing in one game for the Raiders. He totaled two tackles in 25 defensive snaps in Las Vegas’ Week 9 victory over the New York Giants. He was later waived.
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He began his career with the Dallas Cowboys, who chose him in the second round of the 2016 NFL draft.
Smith played five seasons with the Cowboys and was a Pro Bowl selection in 2019 after collecting 142 tackles, 9 passes defended and 2 forced fumbles.
Smith bounced around teams during the 2021 campaign. He was released by Dallas after four games but then signed with the Green Bay Packers. Following two games with the Packers, Smith was let go and later picked up by the Giants.
His last productive season came in 2022, when he registered 88 tackles in 13 games for the Giants. Smith has started in 69 of 88 career games, totaling 626 tackles, 11 sacks and 6 forced fumbles.
In Las Vegas, Smith will compete for a role in an inside linebacker group filled with question marks. Newly signed linebackers Elandon Roberts and Devin White — who is also trying to revive his career — are projected starters. The rest of the group, however, consists of unproven players, including Cody Lindenberg, who was selected in the seventh round of last month’s draft.
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Michael DiRocco
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Travis Hunter’s first appearance on defense for the Jacksonville Jaguars will come next week.
Coach Liam Coen said the two-way standout has been learning the offensive and defensive playbooks, but they opted to have him just catch passes during the Jaguars’ two-day rookie camp that concluded Saturday. The team will get him some defensive reps for the first time during the last week of Phase Two of the offseason conditioning program.
“We just kind of ended up making a decision that from yesterday to today, we wanted to be able to clean up some of the things that we may have been able to miss yesterday [and] get extra reps on the offensive side of the ball and next week he’ll start to roll on defense,” Coen said after the roughly 90-minute workout.
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The Jaguars’ plan for Hunter — who played receiver and cornerback in college at Jackson State and Colorado — was to start out on offense because that’s a more complex system to learn and then have him get time on defense as he became more comfortable. But Hunter already has started going through the defensive playbook.
“You’ve just got to get used to it,” Hunter said. “It just has a lot of different types of calls, but other than that, the defense is pretty easy. You’ve just got to get used to the offense.
“Just longer calls and concepts are different [on offense than defense].”
Coen said Hunter already has learned some of the coverages despite not having spent as much time in the defensive playbook as the offensive one.
“He’s been able to dive in and learn some of our three-deep coverages, what do we call our three-deep coverages on the outside, if he has to be manned up on the backside of a three-by-one, he knows all of those calls already,” Coen said. “So, at the end of the day, it’s going to be about, on the defensive side of the ball, communication. The technique and fundamentals, we’ll continue to harp on, but it’s really about being on the same page as the rest of the guys on the back end from a communication standpoint and the rest will kind of take care of itself.
“He’s obviously having to learn both sides of the ball. He’s a football-smart guy. The game makes sense to him. And so now it’s just about putting in that time, that extra time that he’s going to have to do in order to be successful.”
The reigning Heisman Trophy winner played 1,481 snaps and had 1,258 yards and 15 TDs receiving to go along with four interceptions on defense last season at Colorado. He averaged 113.9 snaps per game.
