New York Giants 2024 Training Camp Preview: OLB Brian Burns

The New York Giants made a massive splash this off-season by trading for Carolina Panthers edge rusher Brian Burns. Burns is coming off an eight-sack season, something he’s done every year of his career except for his rookie year when he finished with 7.5 sacks as a rotational rusher.

The Giants traded a 2024 second-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick and swapped 2024 fifth-round picks with the Panthers. The second-round pick was the Giants’ original pick; they had an extra pick as a result of Leonard Williams last year.

For a Giants team that is going to try and replace the pass-rush production lost by defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s blitz-happy defense, Burns gives them an elite edge rusher who is no longer going to be the sole focal point for opposing offenses to key in on to eliminate.

A good pass-rush tends to be greater than the sum of its parts and with Lawrence, Thibodeaux, and Burns in the fold – this Giants pass-rush has the potential to be near the top of the NFL.

Height: 6-5
Weight: 250
EXP: 6 Years
School: Florida State
How Acquired: T-CAR

Burns had statistically one of the worst years of his career in 2023, which, without context, can make the Giants’ trade and extension of him look somewhat questionable.

For those who recognize context matters in all things, especially on the football field, we can identify why Burns’ overall production may have been down, but the film and efficiency stats are still on his side.

The Panthers were a horrendous team in 2023, finishing the season with an NFL-worst record of 2-15. The majority of those games were clear and identifiable losses from the early goings as they just didn’t have a quality roster.

Due to those clear losses, teams were allowed to run often against the Panthers while killing the clock. The Panthers allowed the third-fewest passing yards in the NFL last season, not because of their elite defense but because of their constant trailing in games. NFL teams threw the ball just 481 times against the Panthers, 25 attempts less than the second-fewest.

Very few NFL pass-rushers would be able to find success when being given so few opportunities to rush the passer. It doesn’t help that despite his 21 percent pass-rush win rate (tied for 10th-best in the NFL), Burns was double-teamed on 14 percent of his pass-rush attempts.

For the record, Dexter Lawrence was double-teamed on 71% of his pass-rush attempts. With Burns on the Giants–and let’s not forget about Kayvn Thibodeaux–the Giants’ opponents will have to make some very tough decisions regarding where they spend their resources.

After trading for Burns, the Giants made Burns one of the highest-paid edge rushers in the NFL with a five-year contract worth a total of $141 million. The contract holds $87,500,000 total guaranteed and $76,500,000 fully guaranteed at signing.

This means that in addition to Burns’ $35,000,000 signing bonus, which is spread out evenly to cost $7,000,000 annually, he also has his salaries for both 2024 and 2025 fully guaranteed. The guaranteed salary for Burns ends in the 2026 season with $10,750,000 of his $30,750,000 cap number guaranteed.

The way this contract works out is that unless there’s some sudden and major drop-off in his talent, Burns is fairly untouchable until the 2026 season. That would still hold a dead cap hit of $17,750,000 but would leave savings of $13,000,000. 

In 2027 and 2028, Burns could be a post-June 1st cut, which would leave a $7 million dead cap hit due to the guaranteed signing bonus but free up $25.5 million.

It’s safe to say that Burns is the most guaranteed player on the roster right now. From a financial perspective, the Giants would take one of the largest dead money cap hits in NFL history if they were to cut him before 2026.

The Giants already had one of the most productive defensive lines in the NFL last season with Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodueax combining for 108 pressures, 19 sacks, 18 quarterback hits, and 71 hurries. 

Adding Burns to the mix now puts opposing offensive lines at an extreme disadvantage. They will have to decide whether to double Lawrence on the interior and/or keep an extra pass-blocker in to double Burns.

I don’t think Thibodeaux is at the level where opposing offenses will be building their gameplan around avoiding him but after some time of Lawrence and Burns running the Giants pass-rush, Thibodeaux should be one of the more productive young edge rushers. 

In defensive coordinator Shane Bowen’s defensive system, edge rushers are often put on an island outside of the offensive tackles’ shoulders – giving the defender an outside leverage advantage.

I would look at Burns’ potential usage similar to how Bowen used Harold Landry III with the Titans last season. Landry III lined up almost exclusively either on the outside shoulder of the tackle or even further away from the line of scrimmage to be lined up with the tight end or outside the tight end, Burns spent 100% of his snaps in 2023 in a similar fashion.

Bowen deployed Landry III as a pass-rusher on 83% of his passing-down snaps, dropping him into coverage when bringing out exotic blitzes and creepers that would send usual pass-rushers into coverage. 

Burns has experience there, as he was used similarly, rushing the passer on 84.6 percent of his passing-down snaps and dropping into coverage the other 15.4 percent.

The major difference for Burns in 2024 compared to previous years is that now he’s playing alongside Lawrence, who is in the discussion for being the best interior defensive lineman in the NFL. 

With Derrick Brown on the Panthers’ interior, Burns has played with a dominant force at nose tackle but none with Lawrence’s game-wrecking ability.