The New York Giants are putting the finishing touches on their preparations for the 2025 campaign. The team has endured a hectic offseason, with the hope being that the moves they made will help provide a building block that they can move forward from in the future. And even with their season-opener just a couple of days away, the team is still making moves.
On Thursday morning, the Giants front office decided to restructure left tackle Andrew Thomas‘ contract in order to create $12.2 million in cap space for the 2025 season. While that move seems like good business on the surface, one team insider asked one big question after news of Thomas’ new deal came to light.
Why Did the Giants Restructure Andrew Thomas’ Contract?
The Giants selected Thomas with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and since then, he’s been one of the most divisive players on their team. After laboring through his first two seasons, Thomas enjoyed a dominant campaign in 2022, earning a spot on the All-Pro Second Team, which earned him a massive five-year, $117.5 million contract extension.
Since then, though, Thomas has played in just 16 total games over the past two seasons due to a slew of injuries, and even when he’s been on the field, he hasn’t looked like the player he was in 2022. Thomas has spent the offseason recovering from Lisfranc surgery on his foot, and his status for Week 1 is up in the air after he didn’t practice on Thursday.
While Thomas’ playing status in New York’s season-opener is noteworthy, his contract also may present issues down the line. While the team created a big chunk of cap space for this season, they have simply pushed that money onto the cap in future seasons, which could be an issue if Thomas keeps getting hurt. When looking at the situation, Dan Duggan of The Athletic openly wondered why the team didn’t restructure star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence’s deal instead.
“It doesn’t really matter who a team restructures, but surprised the Giants did Thomas over Dexter Lawrence since Schoen has been conservative about restructuring players with injury histories,” Duggan wrote in a post on X. “This is a max restructure of Thomas that will add $3M to his cap hits in each of the next four years.”
Should the Giants Have Restructured Dexter Lawrence’s Contract?
Getty ImagesDexter Lawrence reacts before the game against the Seattle Seahawks in 2022.
Whereas Thomas has been inconsistent in recent years, Lawrence has quietly emerged as one of the most consistent interior defensive linemen in the league. Since being used primarily at defensive tackle instead of defensive end, Lawrence has earned three straight Pro Bowl selections, in addition to a pair of All-Pro Second Team honors.
Lawrence’s four-year, $87.5 million contract isn’t as large as Thomas’ deal, but if the Giants simply want more cap space for the 2025 campaign, restructuring Lawrence’s deal would have been far less risky. At the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world, but this is a rather confusing decision that New York will have to hope doesn’t come back to bite them later this season.
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