It hasn't been 10 days since Dexter Lawrence made his frustrations with the New York Giants public with a strong-arm trade request. The 28-year-old is clearly fed up with stalled contract talks that have been ongoing for two years now.
His grievance is pretty straightforward: he believes he deserves more money. When he signed his four-year, $90 million extension back in 2024, he was the third-highest-paid defensive lineman. Two years later, and he's all the way down at 12th. It also doesn’t help that there’s no guaranteed money left over the next two years of his deal.
General manager Joe Schoen spoke with the media on Tuesday and told everyone talks with Dex were ongoing and that they've had good conversations. Then six hours later, NFL insider Ian Rapoport broke the story wide open, saying that talks had come to an impasse and that a trade is all but inevitable. Either Schoen lied six hours earlier, or something else is going on here.
Things went from bad to worse in record time, and not even 24 hours after the news of the impasse, it somehow got impossibly worse. Pat Leonard of the Daily News took the impasse and made it look like child's play, reporting:
"The Giants and Dexter Lawrence are not at an impasse. The situation is more dire than that:
The contract negotiations between the team and Lawrence’s camp have 'broken off,' sources tell the Daily News."
Giants Dexter Lawrence situation just took a much worse turn
Okay, so let me get the timeline straight because it's important:
- In 2022, Big Dex had his coming-out party, earning his first Pro Bowl nod and first Second-Team All-Pro honors, which led to a four-year, $90 million extension in May of 2023.
- The 2023 season rolls around, and Lawrence earns his second Pro Bowl nod and his second Second-Team All-Pro honor, establishing himself as arguably the best interior lineman in the league.
- Then Dexy takes sexy to another level in 2024, earning his third Pro Bowl nod after posting a career-high 9.0 sacks and 8.0 tackles for loss, even after missing five games with a season-ending elbow injury.
- But it all comes to a halt in 2025 when Lawrence has arguably his worst season as a pro, with a clear decline in play and interest -- the elbow injury and astonishing inability to win a game likely played a part in that.
That gets us caught up to 2026, where the past four years have basically been squished into a day. Halfway through his extension, and with no guaranteed money remaining, the four-year captain wanted a better contract and a bigger payday.
Related: Brian Burns couldn’t have made his stance on Dexter Lawrence any clearer
The Giants weren't willing to meet his asking price, resulting in a trade request that went from Schoen's "good conversations" comment to an impasse, now to a completely broken relationship, all in the span of 24 hours.
Trading Dex would set a terrible precedent for a locker room looking for the final straw to break their backs. How did it get like this? We may never know. What we do know is that whatever this front office is doing behind closed doors with its best player isn't working. Props to Schoen and Co. for taking a financially driven trade request and turning it into a total clown show.
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