{"id":900790,"date":"2026-05-25T11:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/900790\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:03:16","slug":"bengals-get-national-warning-dexter-lawrence-trade-could-backfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/900790\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals get national warning Dexter Lawrence trade could backfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 24, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t many criticizing the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> for the Dexter Lawrence trade<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Losing the No. 10 pick in the draft for Lawrence hurt, no doubt. But most would look at the overall situation for the Bengals<\/a> and Joe Burrow and come to the conclusion that it was a fair asking price.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weighed in that analysis are the understandable risks with Lawrence in terms of age, financial cost and recent injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those are some considerations ESPN\u2019s Bill Barnwell<\/a> wrote about recently while tabbing the Lawrence trade as the Bengals\u2019 worst offseason move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bengals didn’t have to do as much financially to appease Lawrence as I would have expected at the time of the deal, which helps,\u201d Barnwell wrote. \u201cAnd if they get the version of Lawrence they’re hoping for — an elite nose tackle who can control two gaps and get after the passer more than the vast majority of 0-technique linemen — they’ll be happy with the trade. But I’m nervous that Lawrence is coming off his worst season as a pro as part of a defense that was dismal against the run in New York. And though that can partially be chalked up to an elbow injury, Lawrence’s 2024 season was ended by that same elbow issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n

In a funny twist, Bengals fans were thrilled to see the franchise finally stop overvaluing draft picks so much\u2026before turning in some mediocre to downright terrible draft classes that put them in this hole to begin with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that the Lawrene trade has happened, the negative counterpoints include the Bengals losing cheap team control of a rookie for four or five years while spending big on the offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The good news? Lawrence was a win-now move that sent a message and should free up prospects across the defense to develop properly on the fly. And if cap space is a concern, it shouldn\u2019t be, as the league number keeps jumping each year and they have plenty of ways, like contract restructures, to create even more room.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 24, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET There weren\u2019t many criticizing the Cincinnati Bengals for the Dexter Lawrence trade.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2053],"tags":[95878,228,227,256,2296,7,6,119375,13078,95905,95882,95913,96713,95892,96121,95895,95897,95883,95881],"class_list":["post-900790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-accessfree","tag-bengals","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sourcebengals-wire","tag-sstssportsnflbengals","tag-sstsnbengals","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagcincinnati-bengals","tag-tagdexter-lawrence-ii","tag-tagespn-inc","tag-tagjoe-burrow","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116634884743477026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}