Dexter Lawrence is the Giants’ best player, their game-wrecker. So it was unusual and disconcerting to see the star defensive tackle significantly limited throughout the spring and first few weeks of training camp.
But Lawrence, 27, said this week that he is on schedule with his planned ramp-up from a dislocated left elbow that he suffered last Nov. 28 in a loss at Dallas.
“I’m where I’m supposed to be. That’s just what I can say about that,” Lawrence, 27, said of his football shape. “It’s just a process of me and my elbow. It’s a continual process.”
“I’m getting better every day,” he said after the first of two joint practices against the Jets. “I got a lot more reps today than I got last week, and I’m feeling good. So that’s the process when you’ve got to keep going.”
It’s reassuring to hear Lawrence say he’s on track. But it’s not ideal that the team’s best player is still working his way back into playing shape in mid-August, given the Giants’ urgent need to start off the right way on Sept. 7 at Washington.
Lawrence has made second-team All-Pro each of the last two seasons. He is the tip of their spear. And they need him at full strength immediately with Jayden Daniels, Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert as the first four quarterbacks on the Giants’ regular season schedule.
Lawrence knows that. So he hasn’t just been working his own way back into form. He’s also found other ways to try to improve the team.
First, he set the tone for training camp with an emphatic press conference about the Giants’ need to remember what their true goal is — and to conduct themselves accordingly.
“I didn’t hold back meeting with the defense,” Lawrence said in late July. “[I let] them know if we want to get where we want to go — and that’s the Super Bowl, that’s the ultimate goal — we got to prepare for that every day. We got to train like that every day.
“Challenge yourself like, ‘What can I work on today? What can I improve today?’” he added. “That’s the challenge, and that’s where you see greatness. And that’s when you get in the flow state.”
Then, pass rusher Brian Burns revealed this week that Lawrence has been teaching him some new tricks of the trade to get to the quarterback.
“I’m just trying to take my game to a level it’s never been,” said Burns, who dominated the Jets in two joint practices this week. “That requires me doing things I never did. So I’ve been working with Dex quite a bit, talking with Dex a lot, just how to manipulate body positions and try to use my length and power more and not just my speed and finesse. That’s been good to me so far.”
Burns, 27, and Lawrence came into the NFL in the same draft class at picks No. 16 and 17, respectively, of the 2019 first round. Now both are established veterans playing on lucrative second contracts. But Burns is still accepting Lawrence’s counsel, because he respects the tackle’s game that much.
“It’s always been an uphill battle with me trying to add that into my game, but Dex is one of the best to do it,” Burns said. “And the way he does it, obviously he has brute strength, but he’s so much smarter than that. He’s a master at manipulating body positions.
“Of course it takes strength to do that, but it also takes length and technique,” he said. “And that’s something he works constantly. When I see him working it, and he expressed that he wanted to help me in that area, s–t, why not? Everybody’s trying to get better.”
The real impact Lawrence makes on the Giants’ wins and losses, though, is on the field. That’s where they need him.
He didn’t do team work in the spring. He has been limited or sidelined from team work often during camp. And he even was doing conditioning sprints at one practice on a side field as part of his ramp-up while the rest of the Giants did their 11-on-11 team work.
So the Jets joint practices were a good next step toward the real thing.
In late July, the Giants added $3 million in incentives to Lawrence’s contract for 2025, one day after the Daily News asked Lawrence if he had an issue with his contract ranking him as tied for the 10th-highest paid defensive tackle in the NFL.
So the team is well aware of Lawrence’s value.
They need him at full strength on Sept. 7, though. That’s all that matters: having No. 97 lined up over Washington center Tyler Biadasz for four quarters.
Originally Published:
