New York Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II requested a trade on Monday amidst deteriorating contract talks this offseason. As a result, he will be sitting out team workout programs which officially kick off on Tuesday.
Lawrence’s camp and the Giants front office have unsuccessfully tried to hammer out a long term deal over the past two offseasons, leading to frustration on Lawrence’s part regarding his standing in the team’s future plans. Despite the team overhauling their football operations department, sources indicate that little to no progress has been made in moving contract talks forward.
The 28 year old has been a focal point of the team’s defensive line since breaking into the league, and would be a major loss if the team ultimately decides to part ways with him. A sentiment that new head coach John Harbaugh echoed just over a month ago.
“How important is he? Really important,” Harbaugh said in February. “He’s super, super important. He’s a cornerstone football player — not really a cornerstone, more like the middle stone. He’s right in the middle. He’s a very big stone, and he’s a very active, athletic one.”
The former 1st rounder has two years remaining on his current deal, and is scheduled to make $20M in 2026. That figure would put him 12th in the league in terms of highest paid interior defensive linemen, and well behind the likes of Chiefs DT Chris Jones who is bringing home an average of $31.75M per season.
A 3x Pro-Bowler, Lawrence has twice been named a 2nd team All-Pro since joining the league in 2019. On paper, 2025 represented a down year for the Clemson alum, registering just half a sack, 31 tackles, and 8 QB hits. All were career lows for the talented lineman.
Granted, Lawrence regularly faces double teams (he faced two or more blockers on 55.5% of snaps last year, good for 2nd most in the league), and was playing for a 4-13 team which struggled universally on both sides of the football in 2025. But the timing of having a step backwards in terms of on field productivity likely didn’t add much to his team’s negotiating power this offseason.
Last year, the team was able to smooth things over by adding $3M in incentives on top of his $17M deal, and there exists a world in which a similar path is taken in 2026. However, after watching former teammates Leonard Williams and Saquon Barkley each leave town and win Super Bowls, Lawrence may feel that in order to solidify his legacy, he will need to do it elsewhere.
Unfortunately for New York, even if a suitable deal were to fall into their laps before the draft, the Giants defensive line remains extremely top heavy in terms of talent. If you were to remove Lawrence from the equation today, they’d be looking at starting one of Roy Robertson-Harris, or Darius Alexander in his place.
While both are fine in depth roles, suddenly thrusting them into the starting lineup wouldn’t exactly mesh with new defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson’s vision for restoring New York to the NFL’s defensive elite anytime soon.
With the bulk of the impact free agents along the defensive line already signed, if the team does indeed opt to move on from their keystone player in the trenches, they’ll likely need to swing a second deal, while also adding bodies to the position via the draft.
Whether cooler heads will prevail, or if this situation will drag well into the summer now remains anyone’s guess.
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.