John Harbaugh said on Monday that “the prospects are going to be high” that star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who is skipping voluntary offseason workouts while seeking a contract extension, will continue to be a member of the New York Giants.
“We want Dexter here and I believe Dexter wants to be here,” Harbaugh said after conducting his first voluntary workout as Giants head coach. “That’s a good formula, but there’s business involved. It’s a business proposition.”
Harbaugh said at the NFL Scouting Combine that he believed Lawrence was “excited” about the prospect of being with the Giants in 2026. In recent weeks, though, Harbaugh sensed that Lawrence might do this.
“We know it’s pro football and these things happen every year, pretty much on every team, so not surprised by it,” Harbaugh said. “Saw it coming a few weeks back, probably, and good conversations with Dexter’s agent, Joel Segal, and understood what they were thinking. This is where we’re at, so we’re just trying to work through it and see what we can get done.
“When I first got hired for a few weeks we had great conversations, but once it moved into this type of conversation it got to be about business and we knew it was going to be an issue.”
The 28-year-old Lawrence is in the third year of a four-year, $90 million contract extension he signed in 2024. He is the longest-tenured Giant, having been selected in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
Harbaugh said he will “get as involved as the head coach should” in the Lawrence situation.
“I’ll be in conversations with, with Dawn [Aponte] and with Joe [Schoen], but they’ll be leading the negotiation.,” Harbaugh said. “It’s not something I’m going to be, it’s not my expertise area. So I won’t be involved as far as any kind of negotiating, but I know we’ll talk about it and I’ll probably throw my two cents in where I can, but trust them to do a great job. And I know they will. They always do.”
“We’ll see what happens.”
In response to a question about keeping or trading Kayvon Thibodeaux, Harbaugh had said “everybody’s tradeable.”
So, would the Giants grant Lawrence’s trade request should it become apparent a deal could not be reached?
“I don’t know if granting a request is really the right way to say it because it doesn’t really work that way,” Harbaugh said. “It’s not like a Christmas gift. It just doesn’t work like that.
“It’s business. So the business is to be the best football team that we can be. And the business for him, I’m sure, is to be the best player he can be. And then there’s financial obligations, restraints, opportunities, all those things that go around that because it’s pro football. I guess there isn’t college football now, too. It’s just, it’s different a little bit in the way it works for the contracts in this league. So that’s, that’s really what it boils down to. We’ll see what happens.”
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