Giants lose "cornerstone" player in Dexter Lawrence for a 2026 lottery ticket
If the handling of the Dexter Lawrence situation was the first real test of the John Harbaugh-Joe Schoen regime in New York, many will conclude they failed it. They're losing a premier talent who is still in his prime at age 28, in exchange for the tenth pick in the 2026 draft. There's no guarantee the player they pick with Cincinnati's first-round selection will ever become as effective as Lawrence was.
At the Scouting Combine, Harbaugh sang Lawrence's praises in unequivocal terms. “He’s a cornerstone football player ," Harbaugh said at the time. “Not really a cornerstone.
He’s more like the middle stone. He’s right in the middle. He’s a very big stone and he’s a very active athletic stone.
So we want him in there being a big stone. " Maybe it was puffery, aimed at getting more for the player in an eventual trade. Or maybe it was, you know, the truth.
If so, something went haywire on the way to fixing a contract that he had outplayed. That's the reality of the out years of a multi-year deal. Once the significant guaranteed money is gone, the team can (and will) rip it up if the player isn't deemed to be doing well enough.