If Travon Walker’s four-year, $110 million extension is any kind of preview for what Kayvon Thibodeaux is about to get paid, the New York Giants are in one of the most expensive pickles I've ever seen.
The Jacksonville Jaguars selected Walker with the first overall pick in the 2022 draft. The 6-foot-5, 270-pound pass rusher out of Georgia was viewed as an athletic marvel with the versatility to play multiple positions along the defensive front. He was raw coming out of college, but the Jags saw a high-upside, untapped pass rusher who could anchor their defense for the foreseeable future.
The contract extension all but guarantees they haven’t moved off that thought, even though they’ve changed front offices in his four years in the league. But the idea of Walker has always been better than the player, and Thibodeaux is right there with him, which makes the Giants’ 2022 fifth-overall pick situation a little less complicated than it should be.
Kayvon Thibodeaux's next contract just got a lot more complicated for Giants
Other than being pass rushers selected in the top five of the 2022 class, Thibs and Walker are more alike than you’d think:
Kayvon Thibodeaux | Travon Walker | |
|---|---|---|
25 | Age | 25 |
6-foot-5, 258 pounds | Size | 6-foot-5, 272 pounds |
53 | Games | 63 |
23.5 | Sacks | 27.5 |
0.443 | Sacks per game | 0.436 |
86 | Tackles | 101 |
6 | Forced fumbles | 3 |
They’re both young, athletic, (and for all intents and purposes) underperforming pass rushers; it’s just that now one of them makes $27.5 million per season, and the other is entering the final year of his rookie deal, licking his chops at the idea of cashing in like that.
On the surface, it might seem like Walker has a leg up on the former Oregon standout. After all, he does have four more sacks and has been healthier. But what’s interesting is that Thibs actually beats him in sacks per game, which is a little surprising. Big Blue’s pass rusher has one season with double-digit sacks (2023, 11.5), while Jacksonville’s has two (2023 and 2024 with 10.0 and 10.5, respectively).
You can bet that’s going to come up in his contract talks.
So what is a team like the Giants supposed to do? General manager Joe Schoen has been adamant about keeping him around, despite already rostering Brian Burns and Abdul Carter. It’s unclear what Schoen has gotten in trade talks, but Thibodeaux’s been in them for what feels like his entire career.
Now might be the time to move off his impossible-to-match asking price. There’s no way Big Blue can pay Thibodeaux over $25 million to be the team’s third-best pass rusher when healthy. Burns is already the league’s 10th-highest-paid quarterback terror, and Walker just became the 12th.
How can Schoen and Co. possibly justify spending that much on a player whose production hasn’t come close to the price tag?
The 49ers, Buccaneers, Bears, and Patriots all have glaring needs for pass-rush help and could be talked into meeting New York’s asking price. Either way, if Thibodeaux is eyeing anything close to Walker’s deal, it’s becoming pretty clear the Giants need to make a decision sooner rather than later.