The Cincinnati Bengals made a splash trade this offseason when trading for All-Pro defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence. Cincy gave up the No. 10 pick in the NFL Draft as a result, a move that ESPN’s Seth Walder was not too fond of.

Grading The Deal

Walder grades the deal as a D for the Bengals as he does not believe that Lawrence can continue to perform,

“At the peak of his powers, Lawrence has been incredible. He was exceptional in 2022 and 2023. During those two seasons, Lawrence’s 17.5% pass rush win rate at defensive tackle ranked third best, behind only Aaron Donald and Chris Jones. But unlike those other two pass-rushing savants, Lawrence delivered that production mostly playing nose tackle, which is what made him so special and valuable,” Walder continued.

“He was double-teamed on 68% of his defensive tackle pass rushes during that span, which put him in the 93rd percentile for the position (though that was not unique compared with Donald and Jones). Lawrence recorded 12.0 sacks in those two years — though I think that undersells his impact — and he was an AP second-team All-Pro in each of those seasons. Though his run stop win rate was only average those years, his run-stopping reputation is much, much stronger than that.”

Walder does see some upside if Lawrence can return to his former self,

“The Bengals are getting a player who — if Lawrence can return to his form of several years ago — could be in the mix for the best defensive tackle in the league, and very likely the best nose tackle. But that is an awfully large “if” considering that Lawrence is not coming off one of his peak seasons,” Walder wrote.

“The Bengals are desperate to improve a defense that has let them down in a huge way in recent years. Lawrence, combined with free agent addition Boye Mafe, should give them some pass-rushing and run-stopping juice. And perhaps they are looking at the draft and thinking it’s devoid of top-tier talent. But value-wise, I don’t see how the Bengals make this move. This isn’t a late first-round pick; Cincinnati is surrendering the No. 10 pick to (presumably) pay Lawrence and find out if he can return to his form from a couple of years ago. That’s not the kind of bet I would want to make!”

Giants Win The Trade

According to Walder the Giants were the real winners, grading the trade as an A,

“For the Giants, this is surely much better than they could have imagined. It was not unreasonable that the team didn’t want to give a 28-year-old defensive tackle with two years left on his deal a new contract. But the Bengals solved that problem for New York, and handing the Giants such a premium draft pick must have made it easy to say goodbye. Though Lawrence was a major part of the Giants’ defensive front, a new high draft pick offers the Giants star-level upside on a team-friendly deal for years to come. And assuming no alterations were made to Lawrence’s contract before the trade, the Giants get $20 million off the books,” Walder wrote.