00:06Giants pulled off something that hadn't been done in two decades when they traded Pro Bowl
00:10defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence to the Bengals for the 10th pick in the draft.
00:14Our New York Post sports NFL reporter Ryan Dunleavy actually thinks this trade was personal,
00:20but for who? Let's discuss and break this thing down. Ryan, appreciate you hopping on with us.
00:25It's a trade that everyone was wondering if it was going to be pulled off before the draft,
00:29and it's actually the first time in 21 years a top 10 pick was traded for a non-quarterback.
00:36John Harbaugh said a couple weeks ago that everyone is tradable or can be traded,
00:41and they now have the 5th and 10th pick of the draft. So take us behind the scenes on what
00:47you
00:47know on how this thing was able to get done in the middle of the Knicks game one versus the
00:53Hawks.
00:54Yeah, I think it just reached a boiling point where the Giants didn't want to trade Dexter
00:59Lawrence. They tried to make him some offers. It was clear that Dexter Lawrence didn't want to hear
01:04their offers, and he was done with the Giants. As you can see, he only got a one-year $28
01:10million
01:11extension from the Bengals. Sometimes they say this in Brandon in sports. They say even when it's not
01:18about the money, it's about the money. I really don't think this was about the money. I think
01:22Dexter Lawrence felt disrespected. I think he saw his friends leaving and winning other places and
01:28getting more respect financially and from the fans and from the team and from the organization
01:39and getting higher profiles and winning rings. And so I think it was a lost cause. The Bengals
01:45had proposed this to the Giants something like a week and a half ago. The Giants held them off.
01:51They knew they had this offer in their back pocket, but they were really trying to get a deal done.
01:55So they knew they were going to get a first-round pick if it boiled over. I don't think waiting
02:00would have solved anything. And I think to the Giants front office's credit, they realized,
02:05hey, let's get this done now. Let's help the 2026 team. Let's not drag this out till August and then
02:10realize he's not going to play for us. So they knew what they had. They tried to get it done.
02:16Dexter Lawrence made it clear he didn't want to be here. And so he's not here and they got a
02:20great
02:20return for him. We saw reports that Dexter's agent, Joe Siegel, didn't want to communicate
02:26directly or negotiate directly with Joe Shane. And he didn't want Dexter to communicate directly
02:31with John Harbaugh. You tweeted that it was personable, unpersonal for Dex. So what's your
02:37take on all that? You kind of broke down like, you know, the money and him seeing other people go
02:41on and have success elsewhere. But did you ever feel like there was some sort of rift between Dexter
02:46Lawrence and the organization? Yeah, I definitely do. That's what I meant by personal. Yeah, he
02:52definitely had bad blood towards Joe Shane. Dexter did partially because he felt like the he was,
03:03you know, he had been a good soldier, so to speak, during the lean years, not criticizing the Giants.
03:09And then he saw that he got treated kind of in his eyes, the same as Saquon Barkley, who was
03:15a good
03:15soldier and, you know, didn't get the contract he thought he deserved and then got it from a rival or
03:21Xavier McKinney, who was not exactly close with Dex, but same kind of thing or Julian Love, who's
03:28probably Dex's best friend, and had a contract offer from the Giants in season, turned it down,
03:35went to free agency, saw the market, decided he liked the Giants offer better, went back to the Giants
03:41and was told that offer was no longer on the table. So that obviously rubbed Dex wrong a couple years
03:47ago, he hadn't forgotten it. And he, you know, holds that against the front office. I also don't
03:51think Joe Dexter Lawrence loved being criticized by Carl Banks, the Giants great, who works for the
03:59radio as a radio analyst draws a Giants paycheck. And I would bet that he wondered if that was Carl
04:05Banks his opinion, or if others were putting that in his ear in the organization. So I think there was
04:10a lot of bad blood. I think he was very personal for Dexter Lawrence to get a fresh start here,
04:15even though he has a Giants tattoo. I guess some tattoo removal artist in Cincinnati will make a
04:21good buck. Yeah, I saw some AI to where someone had it covered up with like a little kitty or
04:25like
04:26a little, like a bangle or a cheetah or something. So, I mean, it's funny what AI can do, but
04:32yeah,
04:33he's going to have to, not so much cover that up, but get himself a new tattoo. But the fact
04:39that
04:40Joe Siegel didn't want to negotiate with Joe Shane, do you think, do you look at that as a knock
04:45on Joe Shane? I don't know that. I know people have reported that. That's not my report. If that's
04:53true, I would say a couple things. One, it's John Harbaugh's show and Donna Ponte is the lead
05:00negotiator. It is unusual for an agent to cut out a GM, but the Giants have an unusual structure.
05:08Joe Shane does not have a great reputation in the agent community. He is a very hardline negotiator.
05:16Sometimes it works to his favor. He got a good deal. It looks like a very good deal on the
05:20Brian
05:21Burns contract. Looks like a pretty good deal on the Andrew Thomas contract. Sometimes it doesn't
05:26work in his favor, all the way back to James Bradbury, his first year before they ever played
05:30games. So that's his reputation. He's a very hardline negotiator. He expects people to see
05:35it more his way. So I don't know if that happened. I don't know if they cut him out. It
05:41would be
05:41unusual, but the Giants have an unusual structure where the head coach is the boss and chose his
05:47lead negotiator and Donna Ponte. So don't know that, but that could be a singular case again,
05:55based on Dex having some bad blood between feeling like Joe Shane didn't have a great pulse of the
06:02Giants. So I, if Joel Siegel had another contract with the Giants that was up in a week, I don't
06:09know that he would be the same thing. I don't, I think he would go back to Joe Shane. This
06:12might
06:12be Dexter specific. Okay. So what's done is done. Let's look ahead now because the Giants have a huge
06:18gap in the interior defensive line, a 340 something pound gap, uh, at nose tackle right
06:25now. There's a lot of noise about the Giants now having to sign free agent defensive tackle,
06:31uh, DJ reader after the draft, he was in on the visit, uh, about a week or so ago. Do
06:37you think
06:37he now becomes a must sign after this trade? Yeah, him or somebody like him, Paul Schwartz,
06:44obviously our colleague reported the Giants are hoping or expecting to sign reader. Uh, that would
06:50be a good one. Uh, Shelby Harris is out there. Um, the, the Calais Campbell is out there. If it
06:58was
06:58up to me, I think the Giants should probably need to sign two guys like that or two guys of
07:02that ilk,
07:03if not two of those three and use a top, I don't know, 120 draft pick on defensive tackle. If
07:10not the
07:10second round, then the third, if they end up with one after a trade or no later than the fourth,
07:16uh, to have another building block there to develop young piece. Uh, but certainly they need
07:21reinforcements at defensive tackle. And probably reader is the best guy out there. So that's
07:26probably where they should start. All right. Put your GM hat on for this one. You're Joe Shane,
07:31you're Donna Ponte, you're, you're John Harbaugh. You're in the war room. You now have the fifth,
07:36the 10th and 37th picks of the draft. All of those are premium picks and should be day one
07:41starters. What are you going to do with those picks, Ryan? Well, I have an article up on the
07:46post, uh, today that I ranked my top seven life favorite three man combinations for those three
07:54picks. If it was up to me, I think the Giants perfect scenario would be one of the two Ohio
07:59state
07:59defensive stars at five Caleb downs or sunny styles. I think downs is more likely to be there than
08:07styles, but styles might actually be their preference, but either one of those guys they'll
08:11feel good at at five. And then I think Jordan Tyson, who I'll have more on in the post tomorrow.
08:16Uh, I think Jordan Tyson at 10, the Arizona state receiver, man, if he's healthy, that is only knock
08:22his injuries. If he's healthy, you're talking Jamar chase and T Higgins. If you have, if you can get,
08:28uh, Jordan Tyson and, uh, Malik neighbors healthy at the same time, I mean, you're talking total
08:33explosiveness on the outside. So, um, I think that would be their perfect scenario there. And then
08:4137 year, that's a sweet spot in this draft for either a guard, uh, chase Basantis, a New Jersey
08:47native, true Jersey blue collar guy, uh, or a defensive tackle to start the rebuild or to take
08:55Dex's shoes. My preference there, I think would be Christian Miller from Georgia. He's got some
08:59nose tackle in him and the giants had him on a, in on a top 30 visit. Any chance you
09:04think they use
09:05that fifth or 10th pick to try and acquire more picks and trade back? I don't know that they'll
09:12do it at five, but I certainly think so at 10, I think at five, John Harbaugh is going to
09:16want a
09:16blue chipper, uh, at 10, I think it's certainly possible. You could see a giants jets trade at 10.
09:21If the jets are thinking Ty Simpson, uh, and want to get ahead of the Rams, or they're thinking about
09:27a receiver and even Jordan Tyson and, uh, the giants are willing to move back to 16. I think
09:33you could totally see, uh, the giants move down from 10 depends who's available. Depends who teams
09:39want to trade up for Brett beach. The chief GM said he expects a lot of trades. So maybe that's
09:44a
09:44possibility. I think the giants, they put it five, but 10 for 16 and a second or third rounder or
09:50something like that, or 10 for 13. If the Rams want to move up something like that, I think is
09:55totally viable. Heck, I wouldn't even rule out Brandon, a giants Cowboys trade. Uh, Cowboys are
10:00said to want to move up. And we saw how well the Cowboys Eagles, Micah Parsons, Devonta Smith trade
10:05worked out a couple of years ago. Wow. Got ourselves a little ceasefire with that one. Uh, a little,
10:10little, little trade within the division there. Uh, lastly, before I let you go, we've been talking
10:14about the draft. Obviously this, uh, Dexter Lawrence news has a lot of cause and effect.
10:20One of those effects, I just saw Ian Rappaport kind of put out some information there that
10:24Kayvon Thibodeau is now unlikely to be traded again. John Harbaugh said anybody can be traded,
10:31but do you feel as though that now that Dexter Lawrence is gone, Kayvon stays?
10:37Uh, yeah, I think that giants were asking for a day to pick to begin with. And I don't think
10:41teams are meeting that, uh, that's only going to go up or solidify now because the giants
10:48aren't looking to tear apart their front seven. They spent four years building up the front seven
10:52to be their, their, uh, identity of their team. And they just lost the best or second best guy in
10:59that group, uh, depending on where you see Brian Burns. So they're not going to start shredding
11:03it apart by also taking Kayvon Thibodeau off it. So I, I would say, yes, it's very unlikely Kayvon
11:08gets moved. Lastly, three, four days away from the draft. Final thoughts, Ryan.
11:14Uh, I think the giants need to go offense and defense. I was having a hard time,
11:18uh, with the fifth pick projecting like, Oh, if they go offense, it helps dart. If they go
11:23defensive, they can improve the worst run defense in NFL history. Like now I think they can go both
11:28at five and 10. I'd be surprised that they use both picks on the same side of the ball. I
11:32think
11:32they can address both sides. All right, Ryan. Appreciate you hopping on with this, man.
11:36Thanks, Brian.
Comments