The NFL has a pedigree among each position group. Over the last half decade, the defensive tackle position has seen Kansas City’s Chris Jones as the premiere player along the defense’s interior. Just behind Jones, though, sat a pair of New Yorkers. The Jets Quinnen Williams and the Giants’ Dexter Lawrence had been considered as the premiere players at the next rung down.
Now, after the Dallas Cowboys acquired Williams midseason 2025 and the Giants shipped Lawrence off to the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday night, neither player resides in Gotham any longer. The two players who were linked by sharing a building now will be linked by the compensation paid by their acquiring teams. The natural progression is to wonder about the cost each paid and which player required the heavier price.
Update: Full contract, performance, and draft-class analysis added.
Cowboys traded 2.44 and 2027 first-round pick for Williams
The total cost of the Cowboys’ acquisition is still unknown, but it does fall within a range that is highly estimable. The trade with the Jets sent them Dallas’ second-round pick in 2026 along with the better of their two first-round picks in 2027. Dallas has their own and the Green Bay Packers’ pick, by virtue of their trade for Micah Parsons.
Pick No. 44 is worth 460 points and a future first for teams that are expected to be in playoff contention like the Packers and Cowboys (hopefully) is worth around a little bit less, around 420 points. Future first-round picks for middle of the pack are generally regarded as mid-second-round value.
So the total price the Cowboys paid for Williams was around 880 points on the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart.
On the Rich Hill value chart, No. 44 is worth 135 points, and a mid-second is around 120, so 255 points total.
Bengals traded 1.10 for Lawrence
This is fairly straight forward on the surface. The 10th pick is worth 1300 points on the JJ chart, and 369 points on the Hill chart.
The Bengals traded away a lot more value for Lawrence than the Cowboys did to acquire Williams, but the comparison goes beyond draft-pick value charts..
Contract Details and Player Performance
While Lawrence’s trade demands centered around feeling underpaid on a contract he signed in 2023, the two defensive tackles have remarkably similar contract details. Lawrence has two years remaining that will pay him around $42 million through 2027. Williams, although the Cowboys got an extra half-season of his play, will get paid around $46 million through 2027.
But Lawrence is almost certainly going to get an extension with the Bengals, while that may not be the case with Williams in Dallas.
As for their play, both stellar careers were seemingly on a downward trajectory in their final days in New York. Williams’ 2024 play and play through the first half of 2025 was falling off a cliff. But when he moved to Dallas his performance returned to prior levels, even if it didn’t result in high sack numbers.
Williams had overall PFF scores of 90.1 in 2022 and 90.6 in 2023, but dropped to 68.6 in 2024. Through the first eight games of 2025 with New York, he was at 79.7. But in his eight games with Dallas he was back at 90.2.
The Bengals will hope for a similar return to elite levels.
Lawrence graded out at a slightly higher level, with a 91.6 grade in 2022, a 92.9 grade in 2023 and he maintained with a 89.9 grade in 2024. It wasn’t until 2025 that his play dipped, dropping to 75.6.
Production wise, both players dropped dramatically in sacks, with Lawrence failing to register a single one after 21 across three seasons (2022-2024). Williams had 23.5 across that same stretch, but dropped to 2.5 in 2025.
Pressure rates, which are more telling than sack totals, favors Williams by a larger margin — which should be expected as he plays mostly 3T while Lawrence is a nose tackle with stunning pass-rush prowess.
Williams’ three-year pressure rate (2022-2024) is 13.44%, and that went up in 2025 to 13.65%. In other words, he was getting to the backfield at a similar rate even though his volume stats plummeted.
Lawrence’s three-year pressure rate was still a phenomenal 12.88%, but that dipped dramatically in 2025 to just 7.85%. That could’ve been for many reasons, including scheme adjustments, but it correlates to his drop in sacks more closely.
Draft Class Perceived Value: 2026 vs 2027
One thing that normally isn’t considered in these evaluations, but probably should be, is the strength of the draft class the picks are in. Most observers have commented that many of the blue-chip talents in this year’s class would likely sit 5-10 slots back in a typical draft class. This is seen as a down year, partially because of the lack of QBs at the top, but also because the Money 5 positions aren’t heavily represented at the very top.
So when talking about the trade value of this year’s No. 10 pick, the projected quality of player the Giants will get is downgraded a bit because the class is seen as lesser than. 2027, even though prospects are a long ways from declaring, is perceived as having a deeper pool of talent.
So perhaps this comparison should bake that in, and narrow the gap between the two. It doesn’t close it completely though.
Conclusion: Cowboys, Giants both seem to be on winning end
The Cowboys seem to have paid less for their acquisition than the Bengals did, without having to dole out a new contract, for the slightly better player. The Giants seem to have gotten a much better return for a similar or ever-so-slightly lesser player. Using the two trades to counter each other, the NFC East teams both seem to have landed on the winning end of the initial compensation comparison.
As always, though, time will tell how it works out for all involved.
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Giants-Bengals Lawrence deal in comparison to Cowboys-Jets for Williams
Reporting by K.D. Drummond, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
