The Giants’ outlook changed fast, and Kayvon Thibodeaux suddenly sits right in the middle of that shift.
Just 48 hours ago, the conversation around New York was about whether this team could be a sleeper playoff group. Then Jaxson Dart went down with a season-ending knee injury, and the mood around the season changed in a hurry. The possibility of a deadline sell-off started to feel a lot more real, and that naturally dragged Thibodeaux back into the trade discussion.
There’s a catch, though: the bigger question may not be whether other teams want him. It may be whether the Giants would even bother moving him.
Back in April, the Saints were reportedly willing to part with a mid-round pick for the former Oregon star, but that deal never happened. At this point, finding a team willing to match that kind of value looks much harder.
Thibodeaux has two tackles across 67 total snaps, including 49 on defense and 18 on special teams, plus a quarterback hit. It’s only two games, so nobody is expecting him to look like Myles Garrett immediately, but the market hasn’t exactly been helped.
Brian Burns’ ankle injury should push Thibodeaux back into the starting defense, at least for now. Still, he’s a pending free agent who has been in trade chatter for months, and that keeps him on the radar.
Theoretically, a team could still talk itself into the upside. But the price tag has changed.
A fourth- or fifth-round return feels out of reach now. The Giants would probably be fortunate to land even a conditional sixth-round pick, and if the best offer is a future seventh, the case for making a deal gets pretty thin.
There were no credible reports that New York was shopping Thibodeaux before final cuts, and September trades are rare anyway, especially with modern practice squad rules giving teams more ways to patch holes. Even so, Thibodeaux remains one of the few Giants who could still carry some trade value.
And that usually means one thing: he’ll be making plays for a legitimate Super Bowl contender in January.
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