Trade demands in the NFL are rarely clean, but this one feels different. When a cornerstone player like Dexter Lawrence reportedly pushes for a move, it sends shockwaves through a locker room that’s still trying to define its identity.
And instead of dodging the noise, New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh leaned straight into it with a blunt message without sugarcoating the situation.
John Harbaugh Has Blunt Message When Asked About Granting Dexter Lawrence’s Trade Request
When asked whether he’d entertain granting Lawrence’s trade request, Harbaugh was blunt.
“I don’t know if ‘granting a request’ is the right way to say it. It doesn’t really work that way. It’s not a Christmas gift,” Harbaugh said. It just doesn’t work like that.”
He then added that this is a business, so they have to make the best decisions for the Giants organization.
“It’s business. The business is to be the best football team we can be. The business for him, I’m sure, is for him to be the best player he can be,” Harbaugh added. “There’s financial obligations, restraints, opportunities, all the things that go around that because this is pro football. I guess there is in college football now, too. It’s just different a little bit in the way it works with the contracts in this league. That’s really what it boils down to.”
When asked about the possibility of Lawrence staying with the Giants, Harbaugh said, “We’ll find out. I think the prospects are going to be high. The Giants, speaking for the Giants, we want Dexter here. I believe Dexter wants to be here. That’s a good formula. But there’s business involved. It’s a business proposition. We know it’s pro football. These things happen every year pretty much on every team. Not surprised by it. Saw it coming a few weeks back probably.”
He added that the Giants have had “good conversations with Dexter’s agent, Joel Segal, understood what they were thinking” and the two sides will “try to work through it, see what we can get done.”
Talking about his direct communication with Lawrence, Harbaugh explained that they’ve connected but “not about this.”
“I talked to Dexter early a couple times when I first got hired, first few weeks. We had great conversations,” he added. “Once it moved into this type of conversation, got to be about business, we knew it was going to be an issue. Joel’s preference was we talk through him (the agent).”
Harbaugh essentially said he’ll stay involved in the way a head coach is supposed to, by being part of internal discussions with senior vice president of football operations and strategy Dawn Aponte and GM Joe Schoen. But he made it clear he won’t take part in the actual negotiations. He admitted that contract talks aren’t his area of expertise, so the front office will handle those.
At most, he’ll offer input where he can, but he emphasized his trust in Aponte and Schoen to get the job done, noting that they’ve consistently handled these situations well.
Harbaugh made it clear that the organization’s priority is building the strongest roster possible, and he later doubled down on this idea by stressing that “everybody’s tradable.”
“You want to talk about is [Kayvon Thibodeaux] a trade possibility? Everybody’s tradeable. Everybody,” he said.
By pointing to the financial realities involved in a trade request, Harbaugh made it clear that situations like this are far more complex than simply agreeing to a demand.
