Star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence asked the New York Giants to trade him on Monday. How did the situation between the Giants and Lawrence get to this point? What happens now? Let’s try to explain what we know.
Why is he asking for a trade?
There are two reasons:
Money
Of course it is about the money. It’s always about the money.
Lawrence has two seasons remaining on the four-year, $90 million extension he signed in 2024. At the time, Lawrence was one of the top three or four highest-paid defensive tackles in the NFL. Now, his $22.5
million average annual value is 11th.
Jordan Davis of the Philadelphia Eagles, who has eight career sacks and has never so much as made a Pro Bowl in four seasons, just signed a three-year, $78 million extension, an average of $26 million per year. Daron Payne of the Washington Commanders, with one Pro Bowl appearance in eight seasons, equals Lawrence’s $22.5 million average annual value.
Lawrence, based on his accomplishments, is underpaid.
All the losing
Lawrence has been a Giant for seven seasons. He has experienced one winning season, and one playoff victory.
Throughout the years, Lawrence has always been a leader. He has said in the past that he wanted to stay with the Giants and help lead them to better days. Last season seemed different. Lawrence had a down season by his standards. He was also more distant, more frustrated, less likely to talk about leading the team or being part of the future.
It was clear that the losing had worn him down.
Lawrence also watched his good friend and former teammate Leonard Williams win a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks a few weeks ago. I’m not sure Lawrence has ever fully gotten over the Giants trading Lawrence to Seattle, and he has to wonder if he will ever get a chance to experience what Williams and Julian Love just did.
Does the request mean he will get dealt?
No.
Lawrence might end up being traded. He might not. This is really the next step in a contract dance with the Giants that has now spanned two offseasons. It is Lawrence upping the ante, and making sure the Giants understand his desire for an extension.
Lawrence not reporting to the offseason program as it begins on Tuesday is not considered a holdout. The offseason work is voluntary as written in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. It is a message that it is time to get serious about his contract.
If Lawrence is still a Giant and does not report when training camp opens in West Virginia this summer that might be the time to become really concerned.
What could the Giants get in a trade?
The trade of Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets to the Dallas Cowboys is the template. Williams and Lawrence are the same age, and both have Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors on their resumes. The Cowboys gave up a 2026 second-round pick (44th overall), a 2027 first-round pick, and defensive tackle Mazi Smith, a former first-round pick who has had a disappointing career to date.
If you are GM Joe Schoen and the Giants, you probably can’t trade Lawrence for less than that. A first-round pick in this draft, a Day 2 pick in this draft or a Round 2 pick in 2027, plus a player — perhaps a rotational defensive tackle.
Why haven’t the Giants given him an extension already?
That’s an easy question to ask. Lawrence, with apologies to Brian Burns, is the best and most dominant defensive player on the Giants’ roster. When he is healthy and in a good frame of mind, there isn’t a more impactful nose tackle in football.
So, pay the man! Right?
Well, it is tricky for the Giants. They face the same type of decision with Lawrence that they faced in 2023 with Williams.
At that time, Williams was 29, had missed time in 2022 with an injury for the first time in a career that began in 2015, appeared to be a player beginning to decline, and was due for a big pay day at the end of the 2023 season.
The choice for the Giants? Give Williams another big contract that might not end well if he truly was in decline, compete for him in the free-agent market and risk getting nothing in return, move him at the 2023 NFL Trade Deadline and use the draft capital received in return and money saved to get younger.
They chose the trade. If you want to say they chose wrong, you can. Remember, though, Schoen turned Williams into Burns, who is four years younger.
With Lawrence, it is even trickier. He is a former Giants’ first-round pick, the longest-tenured player on the roster, and one of the team’s most popular players. They seem to have gone through something like this a couple of years ago with a guy who now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Lawrence is a four-time Pro Bowler, two-time second-team All-Pro and, as stated above, there is no one better when Lawrence is right.
When considering an extension, though, the Giants have to ask how much longer will Lawrence be right? He is a 6’4”, 350-pound 28-year-old man coming off a down season. The Giants have to decide whether 2025 was the beginning of a decline for Lawrence, or whether 2025 was just an anomaly and Lawrence will bounce back and play at an All-Pro level for several more years.
If they believe his decline has begun, trading him has to be on the table. If they believe he can and will bounce back, and that he is too important for them to move on from, they have to find a way extend him.
Prediction time: How will this end?
I have no inside information on this, just what I believe. In the end, I think the Giants will cross their fingers, hope Lawrence’s play doesn’t fall off the way 350-pound Damon ‘Snacks’ Harrison’s did at the end of his career, and give him an extension. That puts him at, or above, the level of the $26 million average annual value in Davis’s deal.
I don’t believe new head coach John Harbaugh, with his stated desire to build the best offensive and defensive lines in football, wants one of his first major decisions to be trading away the league’s best nose tackle. I don’t think Schoen wants to have another great player leaving the Giants added to a resume that already features too many of those. I don’t think John Mara, fighting cancer and wanting to see a winning team NOW, would be happy about watching another premier, popular player be sent packing.
