Bengals Could End Up With More Egg On Their Face From Arnold Ebiketie Trade Debacle

The NFL’s system to decide who gets compensatory draft picks is complicated, and that’s an understatement.

As it stands right now, the Cincinnati Bengals will receive an extra third-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft due to the free agency loss of Trey Hendrickson to the Ravens. And that’s one of the reasons the Bengals ended up backing out of their trade with the Eagles for edge rusher Arnold Ebiketie on Tuesday before the deadline came at 4 PM.

The Bengals, a little before noon, agreed to send a sixth-round pick to the Eagles in exchange for Ebiketie, but after OverTheCap.com’s Nick Korte pointed that the Bengals could lose their compensatory pick in the trade went through, the Bengals backed out.

A press conference in which the head coach apologized on behalf of the de facto GM later, and the entire team had a decent amount of egg on their face.

And now it gets worse (maybe).

The Seattle Seahawks signed former Bengals guard Cordell Volson to their practice squad. If he were to make the active roster and play enough snaps as a starter for the Seahawks, he could, potentially, count as a compensatory free agent, which could give the Bengals an extra seventh-round pick and have allowed that Ebiketie trade to go through without sacrificing the third-round compensatory pick.

Again, this is a big “what if” scenario, and I can’t even pretend I know the ins and outs of the compensatory system (there are few that do… especially inside the offices of Paycor Stadium), but wouldn’t it just seem to work out that way for the Bengals?