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. If the player overperforms and wants the deal to be fixed, there’s not much he can do about it.
Lawrence used the leverage available to him. And he got the trade he wanted. Presumably, the contract will come next.
Still, the next time Harbaugh and Schoen speak to reporters, they’ll be asked about more than what they did with a pair of top-10 picks. Someone will want to know why the situation went sideways. Lawrence wanted an adjustment that reflects the growth in the market and the ongoing rise in the salary cap, which has mushroomed from $182.5 million in 2021 to $301.2 million in 2026 — a 65-percent increase. The Giants didn’t get it done.
There will be internal dynamics that likely won’t be disclosed, unless they’re leaked. Harbaugh could blame Schoen for failing to get the deal done. And that could become another plank in the eventual case Harbaugh makes to hire his own G.M. Which felt inevitable even before the Lawrence situation failed to result in a new contract.
Much of the final analysis will depend on what Lawrence does with the Bengals this season. If he has a major impact on the Cincinnati defense, it could be another Saquon Barkley situation, with everything but the internal discussions broadcast to the world via offseason Hard Knocks.
The difference this time around is that the Giants got something in return. That puts extra pressure on the Giants to draft the right player at No. 10, and then to develop him quickly.