Three-time Pro Bowl DT Dexter Lawrence requests trade from Giants: sources
NEW YORK — Star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence has requested a trade from the New York Giants and will not report to the facility Tuesday, sources told the New York Daily News on Monday, lobbing a grenade into the start of John Harbaugh’s first offseason program as the team’s head coach. Lawrence, 28, asking out of town is not a shock even though it is big news. The two-time, second-team All-Pro’s discontent has been simmering to a boil for a couple years.
Since his last payday in May 2024, negotiations on a raise have not gone to his liking, and the Giants have won seven of their 34 regular season games. Lawrence immediately recorded a career high nine sacks in 2024 in the first season of his new contract, which averages $22. 5 million per season.
But the Giants only were willing to add a few million of incentives onto his contract for 2025. Then the game-wrecking interior defensive lineman had a down year coming off surgery for a dislocated elbow. Still, Lawrence is widely viewed as one of the most disruptive defensive players in the NFL when healthy, commanding frequent double teams.
And while he has toiled in New York, he has watched three of his good friends and closest teammates leave town and win Super Bowls: the Philadelphia Eagles’ Saquon Barkley and the Seattle Seahawks’ Leonard Williams and Julian Love. Harbaugh now arrives promising a more grueling practice regimen coming off a fired staff in former coach Brian Daboll and defensive line coach Andre Patterson, and Lawrence is being asked to lead this franchise out of the darkness without the proper compensation to back up what he means to the team’s bottom line. Lawrence is due to make $20 million this season.
He has two years remaining on his contract, which is tied for only the 11th best average annual value among defensive tackles in the league. That is well below the Kansas City Chiefs’ Chris Jones ($31. 75 million), not to mention the New England Patriots’ Milton Williams ($26 million) and Eagles’ Jordan Davis ($26 million), among several others.