Bengals' Dexter Lawrence trade joins Randy Moss and Russell Wilson in NFL history originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Cincinnati Bengals stunned the league when they sent the 10th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft to the New York Giants for Dexter Lawrence.
Not only was the trade surprising in that it was the Bengals making the deal, but in that Cincinnati sent the 10th pick to get him. Sending a top-10 pick in a trade for a player rarely happens.
As ESPN's Bill Barnwell notes, there are only two other instances since 2000 of a top-10 pick being traded for the player. Those two trades? Randy Moss back in 2005 and Russell Wilson in 2022.
"We've seen a grand total of two veterans traded for first-round picks that were already guaranteed to be in the top 10 since 2000," Barnwell writes. "One was Randy Moss, who was dealt as part of a deal for the seventh pick in 2005. The other was Russell Wilson, who was shipped to the Broncos for a package that included the ninth selection in 2022."
On its own, this trade is a very fascinating one. It's a top-10 pick straight-up for a veteran. That's incredibly rare, as these two prior examples in the last 25 years showcase.
But what makes this even more interesting from the Bengals' perspective is the difference between Lawrence and these two other players.
Wilson was a Pro Bowl quarterback who might've been regressing slightly, still had plenty of upside, and was a big spark for the Broncos in search of their new franchise guy.
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Moss, the superstar wide receiver, was someone any team would surely love to have. Of course, the seventh pick was expensive, but for someone who was on the Hall of Fame track at that point, it was a deal well worth making.
Lawrence isn't like either of them. While he has a few All-Pro and Pro Bowl nods, he plays defensive tackle, a position typically less valued than wide receiver, and especially quarterback.
While the Bengals might've overpaid based on these comparisons, the lackluster 2026 NFL Draft class played a big factor in Cincinnati's willingness to give up this 10th pick.
In a win-now mode, searching for defensive upgrades, the options likely to be on the board at No. 10 overall didn't look too great. This trade from the Bengals is making a lot of different pieces of NFL Draft history, and this note might be the most interesting.
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