EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen was standing on the field in early February watching the Senior Bowl practice with Dan Morgan, the president of football operations/general manager for the Carolina Panthers, and Bills GM Brandon Beane.
The three NFL GMs had worked together in Buffalo, and they have a long-standing friendship and working relationship — Morgan’s and Schoen’s families have vacationed together as recently as this past summer.
Their on-field conversation began with Schoen joking about whether Morgan or Beane wanted to trade up for the Giants’ No. 6 pick, in a scene aired on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” this past summer, before the subject lightheartedly shifted.
“You wanna give us two [first-round picks] for [linebacker Brian Burns]?” Morgan asked.
“Ooooooooooooo!” said Schoen, as if the possibility of a new toy had been dangled in front of a child’s face.
“No. I mean yes, but…,” he continued.
“Or a [first-round pick] and something?” Morgan asked.
“You’re heading in the right direction,” Schoen concluded with a smile.
It was an innocuous back-and-forth at the time. A joke between old friends. But aren’t jokes with friends always rooted in an iota of truth?
It was through some natural ribbing that the idea of trading for edge rusher Brian Burns became more than a throwaway wisecrack — in fact, it was the start of what became the Giants’ biggest offseason acquisition. But it still had to come together, and there were many moving parts.
Most of it happened in the matter of a week. As Burns prepares to face his former team on Sunday in Germany (9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network), here’s a look back at the week in March that changed both teams.
BURNS SAT OUT practices right before the start of the 2023 season, in hopes of a new contract. Burns returned without a deal before the start of the season, but there didn’t seem to be a long-term solution on the horizon in Carolina. After eight sacks and a top-10 pass rush win rate (21.8%) in 2023, he was either going to become a coveted free agent or have the franchise tag placed on him for $24 million.
The Panthers eventually chose the latter, with the possibility he would then be moved.
“I never requested a trade,” Burns told ESPN recently.
Still, the franchise tag set the stage for teams to closely monitor the situation.
Schoen did just that. He remained in constant contact with Morgan — specifically right after the combine, a week before free agency up until the deal was done. Schoen said he made it a priority to improve his team’s pass rush this offseason, whether in the form of someone who played off the edge such as Burns or someone who played on the interior.
Burns had completed his fifth season with the Panthers. He was 26, and the Giants believed a better option than anyone in that year’s draft.
The Panthers decided it was in their best interest long term to trade a good player. They also needed to find a trade partner, and that team, in this case the Giants, had to quickly pivot and sign Burns to a new deal by the start of the free agent negotiating window of noon ET, March 11. If not, they would have missed out on Burns — or several other potential replacements.
IT WAS MARCH 4, 2024, on a plane ride back from the NFL combine, a month after their banter on the field at the Senior Bowl, when Schoen said he and Morgan began texting back and forth about Burns in earnest. A week before free agency was set to begin, the GMs began to have serious conversations about a trade.
They were “far off” at first in terms of value, according to Schoen. The Panthers wanted a first-round pick — the Giants were not going to give one up. Schoen at one point tried to hold back pick No. 39, instead offering their second second-round pick at No. 47. Both sides played hard ball, but eventually made concessions. Schoen agreed to trade pick No. 39. In the final moments before it was agreed upon, Morgan was seen on “Hard Knocks” trying to shake an extra seventh-round pick out of the Giants.
As they got close to the start of free agency, they both thought there was a chance a deal could get done.
On the Sunday night before the window opened, Schoen was on the phone with Giants senior vice president of football operations and strategy Kevin Abrams and Burns’ agent, Todd France, until 2:30 a.m. working on the contract. They went back and forth all day Monday until after the negotiating window opened.
This made the Giants a bit uneasy. They wanted a pass rusher and were holding the money it would take to sign Burns. In the meantime, there were other players — such as defensive lineman Christian Wilkins, who was part of Plan B — who had already agreed to deals. Wilkins landed with the Las Vegas Raiders on a four-year, $110 million contract.
“There were a lot of moving parts as we went through it that had to fall into place,” Schoen said. “Again, one of the most stressful parts is players we would have targeted if we weren’t able to get Brian Burns were being signed by other teams. So it got a little stressful as it went further into Monday.”
Burns said he had a conversation with Morgan in the leadup to free agency and asked him to be real with him. At that point, he realized he would likely be traded.
He didn’t find out about the actual deal with the Giants until Monday morning. Burns said France didn’t want to bring him the deal before the trade compensation was finalized. It was, at the soft deadline set by the start of the negotiating window.
New York gave up a second-round pick (No. 39 in this year’s draft), a fifth-round pick next year and the two teams swapped fifth-round picks this year. Burns then signed a five-year, $141 million deal with $87.5 million guaranteed, which made him the second-highest paid edge rusher at the time.
IT WAS QUITE the ride for Burns to get to that point. Just two years earlier, reports indicated the Los Angeles Rams offered two first-round picks to the Panthers for the young edge rusher. Carolina, with Scott Fitterer as the general manager at the time, turned it down.
“I felt like I was going to be there forever,” Burns said. “But things change.”
Burns, who is in the prime of his career, didn’t fit the needs of the Panthers, who were rebuilding this offseason. That made him expendable, in part because of the price it would cost to re-sign him and his trade value.
Burns chuckled at the idea he was looking for $35 million per season, which was making its way around the combine at the start of March. Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation said they never heard that number.
“I saw all that s— coming out,” Burns said.
San Francisco’s Nick Bosa is the NFL’s highest-paid edge rusher at $34 million per season. Burns signed for just over $28 million per season.
Regardless, Carolina could allocate the draft pick to fill other needs — specifically, the offensive line needed to protect second-year quarterback Bryce Young.
Burns said he didn’t take it personally.
“They had other plans. I guess my timeline and the Carolina Panthers timeline didn’t match up at a certain point. So I think that’s what it was,” Burns said. “I don’t think it was really any bad blood or they thought I was a bad player or anything like that.”
BURNS SAID HE’S happy with his situation with the Giants. He’s in the New York market, where he gets to play in more prime-time games (three plus a Thanksgiving game in Dallas) and receive more exposure. He said this is the biggest difference he has noticed between the Panthers and Giants.
Burns’ production has been similar — he has five sacks and a top 10 pass rush win rate (20.9%). He’s on pace for the second double-digit sack season of his career despite playing through groin and Achilles injuries that had him limping out of the locker room after games the past six weeks.
“It’s unbelievably gritty. It’s selfless. I’ve seen guys with less than that not play,” outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen said. “It’s incredible. He must get in a zone on game day where he’s not feeling anything, because it’s at no expense of his play.”
Burns believes the Giants’ defense is on the right path. Overall, they’re a middle-of-the-pack unit, but they lead the league with 35 sacks. Burns and All-Pro defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence lead a young group.
Those two give the Giants the defensive identity they have been lacking for years. Schoen & Co. wanted a defense that would be relentless rushing the passer and provide shades of the past great Giants defenses.
It’s an added bonus that Burns has become an instant leader, in equal parts because of the clout he has carried as a proven high-end player in the league and his approach.
“The football knowledge, the football IQ, the ability to talk protections, talk how offensive linemen are playing him, all those things correlate to being able to find success on the field,” defensive coordinator Shane Bowen said.
“Those are those little advantages that he’s able to kind of create for himself because of that.”
