Kayvon Thibodeaux is headed into a season that feels a lot like a tryout.
The Giants picked up his fifth-year option last spring, locking in a fully guaranteed $14.751 million for 2026, but they have not taken a step beyond that. No extension talks have happened, and the former No. 5 overall pick is now set to play out what amounts to a contract year while New York keeps pouring resources into the edge around him.
That’s the part that makes this so stark. Brian Burns just finished second in the NFL with 16.5 sacks in 2025 after signing a five-year, $141 million deal in 2024.
Abdul Carter, the No. 3 overall pick a year earlier, is on a rookie contract through 2028 and carries a 2026 cap hit of $10.3 million. Thibodeaux, by contrast, is the one without a future written in past this season.
The Giants have already made their choice about where the money and the snaps are going. Burns is the highest-paid piece of the group, Carter is the young long-term bet, and Thibodeaux is now the third first-round edge rusher in a room built to function even if he isn’t part of the next phase.
That reality shows up in the numbers and in the workload. Burns played all 17 games in 2025, Carter played all 17 as a rookie, and Thibodeaux was placed on injured reserve on December 20 with a shoulder injury after appearing in just 10 games. If the Giants want Burns and Carter on the field for obvious passing downs, there are only so many snaps left to go around.
Thibodeaux still has a case to make. He posted 38 total pressures and a career-high 17 quarterback hits in those 10 games, and his career total sits at 23.5 sacks in 53 games. But the trend is what hangs over him: 11.5 sacks in 2023, 5.5 in an injury-shortened 2024, and 2.5 before the shoulder injury ended his 2025 season in December.
Carter’s sack total was only 4.0, but that doesn’t tell the full story. He generated 66 pressures and earned an 84.5 PFF pass-rush grade, which ranked 11th among 115 qualified edge defenders. That kind of production is why he looks like the clearest candidate to lead the Giants’ rush in 2026.
For Thibodeaux, the challenge is obvious. The option year is not extension money, and it isn’t cheap depth money either. It is a one-year decision, a chance for the Giants to see him under John Harbaugh’s staff before deciding whether he earns another contract in New York or reaches free agency next March.
Thibodeaux said to NFL.com that he knows “the ceiling is a lot higher,” and he has also embraced Harbaugh’s approach, calling the new coach “a maniac” who is “obsessed.” The tone around him has stayed positive, but belief alone doesn’t change a market. Production does, and Burns owns the number that matters most right now.
The Giants open training camp at The Greenbrier on July 30, and Thibodeaux enters it as the most talented player in the building whose job security is the shakiest. He has one season to force the issue, win back the reps, and change the conversation before the option year runs out.
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Fields path gets more interesting because the Giants are still sorting out the rest of the room, and Malik Nabers is not a sure thing to be fully available when the season opens. That leaves the rookie in the kind of in-between spot that can change fast if injuries linger, and it is exactly the sort of situation that can turn a quiet projection into a much bigger debate by the time Week 1 arrives. [Read more 🡒]