Dexter Lawrence spent years as a familiar name on the NFL’s Top 100 list, but this season’s version is telling a different story.
We’re almost halfway through the rankings, and Lawrence still hasn’t shown up. For Giants fans, that may feel less like a surprise than a confirmation.
Lawrence is now with the Bengals after an April trade that brought All-American offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa to New York. The move changed the equation for the Giants, but it also left Lawrence in a spot where his standing around the league is being measured in a new way.
The Top 100 has never been a perfect barometer, and neither has Pro Football Focus. Both have their issues, and the football world has long lived with that reality. Still, Lawrence’s absence from the players’ rankings says something worth noticing.
Last season was the least productive of his career, and he didn’t look as quick in the middle of the line. Even so, PFF placed him among the top 10 interior defensive linemen.
That was the high-end outlier. The broader view from fans and players was much less generous, with Lawrence coming off a subpar 2026 season.
That gap matters because the NFL Top 100 is voted on by players. If reputation alone were enough, Lawrence probably would already be on the board. Instead, the list suggests his peers weren’t willing to push him in based only on what he used to be.
Giants fans had already started moving on before Lawrence formally asked for a trade. His down year, along with his clash with Carl Banks, wore away a lot of the goodwill he had built over seven seasons.
None of that settles the question of who won the trade. That answer is still a long way off, and the Bengals’ team success will be a big part of how it gets judged.
Lawrence has been a strong player for most of his career, and at times he’s belonged in the elite tier. If he bounces back to the level he showed in 2024, he’ll almost certainly be back on next year’s Top 100.
For now, though, his likely omission lines up with what Giants fans already believed: the league is catching up to the same conclusion.
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