It turns out the blockbuster trade that sent Dexter Lawrence to the Cincinnati Bengals was in the works for weeks.
According to Connor Hughes of SNYtv, the Bengals reached out to the Giants offering the No. 10 pick “roughly two weeks ago.” The front office in New York attempted to keep Lawrence in the following days and weeks before eventually accepting the Bengals’ offer.
The Bengals certainly weren’t the only team sniffing around a Lawrence deal.
But according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, a source said this on the NFL trade block drama: “Nobody was going to beat the 10th pick.”
Written another way, nobody was going to match the desperation and urgency coming out of Cincinnati, where a front office wants to go all-in around Joe Burrow’s prime after years of failures.
There in Cincinnati, too, is a scouting department that probably (and correctly, almost guaranteed) didn’t think a blue-chip defensive prospect like Caleb Downs or Sonny Styles would make it to them at No. 10.
So, the Bengals moved a lottery ticket of a pick for arguably the best Chris Jones-like defender in the NFL, a sure thing to boost the entire defense.
And in a funny twist? That two-week timeline means BJ Hill’s hints on social media were…right on schedule and not just jokes.
So there’s that.
This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Bengals, Giants Dexter Lawrence trade timeline and how CIN got it done
Reporting by Chris Roling, Bengals Wire / Bengals Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
