The Green Bay Packers' defensive line needs a boost. Dexter Lawrence's contract impasse with the Giants could give the Packers the star interior presence they desperately seek.
The Green Bay Packers have a need on the defensive line.
Any evaluator of talent, as well as roster construction, will tell you that the interior of the defensive line still needs to be beefed up this offseason.
Signing two-time Pro Bowler Javon Hargrave was a nice start, but he's 33 years old and on the back nine of his career. Meanwhile, Devonte Wyatt is coming off a catastrophic broken fibula and torn ankle ligament injury that he suffered on Thanksgiving of last season. He has elite potential as a three-technique, but he's in no way guaranteed to hit the ground running in 2026 and look like the player he was shaping up to be last season.
The Packers traded defensive lineman Colby Wooden to the Indianapolis Colts for linebacker Zaire Franklin, and the other interior defensive linemen on the team -- Nazir Stackhouse and Warren Brinson -- are unproven gap-pluggers.
So yes, there's a need on the inside, and that's why the Packers should consider trading with the New York Giants for three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence.
Lawrence is looking for a new contract from the Giants, and the two sides are at an impasse. He's asked to be traded, and the Giants are talking to potential suitors.
Could the Packers be one of those suitors? Notably, ESPN's Adam Schefter thinks so.
"I could see the Packers in that mix," Schefter said on ESPN Milwaukee on Wednesday.
What would it take?
"My guess is a two and a five," Schefter speculated. "That's my sense of what it would take. I don't know that it's right. I had somebody suggest to me, 'Oh, they think it would be a first-round pick.' I don't know that anybody is trading a first-round pick for a 28-year-old defensive tackle who wants more money who is coming off, by his standards, a down year. I don't see that."
Keep in mind, the Packers don't have a first-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft because of the trade that brought Micah Parsons to Green Bay last offseason. Their first selection in this draft will come at No. 52 unless they trade it.
If they were to trade that second-rounder for Lawrence, they'd be looking at their first pick coming at No. 84 overall.
Is it worth it? One could easily make the case that it would be. Keep in mind, the Packers have an extra fifth-round pick in this draft because they traded wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks to the Philadelphia Eagles. In the meantime, pick No. 52 could become anything. That player could even become Dexter Lawrence.
Lawrence checks in at 6-foot-4, 340 pounds and he's totaled 30.5 sacks, 103 quarterback hits and 40 tackles for loss ever since being selected by the Giants with the No. 17 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.
Losing that second-rounder is risky, but a defensive line featuring Lawrence, Hargrave, Wyatt, and Parsons would be worth it.