How Can Giants OLB Brian Burns Equal or Top Huge 2025 Breakout Season?

Over the course of the past few offseasons, it’s hard to tally up even a couple of moves that have worked out better for the New York Giants than the big splash they made to trade for Brian Burns in 2024.

Since the momentous exchange with the Carolina Panthers that brought the All-Pro outside linebacker to East Rutherford, Burns has ascended into the franchise’s most productive veteran pass rusher and the one defensive player that every opponent has had to circle as they prepare to try to slow him down.

Except many of those foes have failed in doing so, as Burns has dominated in his first 34 games as a Giant, logging 25 sacks, 114 total pressures, five forced fumbles, 15 pass breakups, and 84 stops against the run while earning pass rush grades as high as 82.9 in that span.

Last fall, Burns certainly made a case for himself to be considered the best player on the Giants’ entire roster and a rare bright spot in what was another dismal 4-13 campaign for New York.

He excels at getting after the quarterback with a uniquely gifted blend of speed, flexibility, and athleticism that can beat the best offensive tackles and get narrow lanes to the football.

However, Burns’ recent success with the Giants wouldn’t have been the same without the organization’s versatile defensive front, with which he has collaborated for two seasons and that features multiple talented players who often draw attention away from him.

That convenience has changed a little over the course of the offseason, in a way that could impact how easy it will be for Burns to build on his trajectory and cement himself as a cornerstone of the organization in their quest for a title under new head coach John Harbaugh.

He figures to remain a key weapon in the Giants’ defense that seeks to terrorize opposing offenses with their own version of a pressure cooker in 2026, but he and the team might need to make some adjustments to how they use him in their rotation in order to help him thrive next year.

Burns is a leader and heavy hitter whenever he steps onto the football field, and Big Blue needs his production to stay the same to reach greater heights.

Brian Burns, OLB

Height: 6-foot-5
Weight: 250 lbs.
Exp: 8 Years
School: Florida State
How Acquired: T(CAR)-'24

2025 in Review

New York Giants linebacker Brian Burns | Yannick Peterhans / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In his second consecutive year playing in all 17 games for New York, Brian Burns came firing out of the gate to more than double his pass-rushing productivity and help lead the Giants' defense towards a top-20 league standing in team pass-rush win rate.

Burns saw 863 total snaps on the field in 2025, just two snaps less than he accumulated the year before, and scored a 75.8 PFF defensive grade by notching 67 total tackles (39 solo), 16.5 sacks, three forced fumbles with one recovery, seven pass deflections and just one penalty against him.

The former 2019 first-round pick’s production, which included the 11th-highest individual pass-rush win rate among edge defenders (16%), propelled Burns into the discussion of the best defensive players across the entire league, but he would fall out of contention for that award as Myles Garrett easily took over the leaderboard with a new single-season record of 23 sacks.

Still, Burns would be a complete problem for most opposing offensive lines to handle throughout the Giants’ slate.

He recorded at least one sack and four tackles in 11 games and another three pressures in nine of those contests, making him a weekly difference-maker when the defense needed to put the rest of the team in a position to remain in or close out games.

Even with the impressive level of playmaking, Burns had one area of weakness left on this past season’s resume, and that was his efficiency as a tackler in the trenches.

He whiffed on 10 of his solo tackles, for a 15.9% missed-tackle rate, which marked the fourth of the last five seasons in which he recorded that number or higher.

Contract/Cap Info

Burns is entering the third season of a massive five-year, $142.8 million deal that he signed with the Giants following the blockbuster trade with the Carolina Panthers that shipped him to the Big Apple during the 2024 offseason and made him the 12th highest-paid edge defender in the NFL.

According to the details of the 2026 installment of his contract, Burns will earn a total of $21,383,333, which stands as the team’s second-largest cap hit after cornerback Paulson Adebo, who has nearly $3 million more sitting on his annual paycheck.

Following a recent contract restructuring intended to help the Giants’ cap space, Burns will receive just a $1.3 million base salary, while $11,583,333 of his prorated signing bonus is converted for the season. He also earned a $1 million-per-game roster bonus that kicked in on March 15th, as well as a $500,000 workout bonus.

While it should be viewed as virtually impossible for the Giants to move on from Burns before the regular season, if he were to be released, the team would take on a massive $57,050,002 dead money charge that would be one of the largest on the current roster.

2026 Preview

New York Giants outside linebacker Brian Burns — Oct 26, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Giants linebacker Brian Burns against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

Last season, one of the main elements that powered Burns’ career-high pass-rushing season was the wealth of weapons that the Giants had at their disposal to confuse offenses and wreak havoc on the quarterback’s ability to get clean throws downfield.

Most importantly, they had a behemoth manning the nose of the defensive front in Dexter Lawrence, whose sheer size and strength were enough to command the attention of multiple blockers who had to focus on chipping him to prevent total destruction of the passing game up the middle.

The opponent’s priority on slowing down Lawrence created more opportunities for his teammates, such as Burns, who has shown throughout his NFL career that he has the intangibles to beat most offensive linemen around the edge and get to the ball carrier quickly.

After two seasons with the benefit of Lawrence and other talented edge rushers flanking him, the Pro Bowl defensive tackle is suddenly gone after being traded to the Cincinnati Bengals on April 19 following a contract dispute with the Giants organization that couldn’t be amended with a reworked deal.

With Lawrence out of the picture, the enemy’s bullseye will likely be shifted towards Burns as the No. 1 player to shut down on Sundays, and that could serve as an obstacle in the way of his racking up the same sack totals or better in the 2026 season.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Giants’ opponents start to hurl chip blocks and double-team packages towards Burns in an effort to make his path to the signal-caller a lot tougher. If New York wants to come up with an answer to help their outside linebacker’s chances, they might need to call upon their newly signed replacement at nose tackle, D.J. Reader.

Reader, who signed to a two-year contract with the Giants on May 5th to bolster the depth and experience along the interior of the front seven, boasts a similar size and frame as Lawrence and has grown his game as a pass rusher with at least 20 pressures and seven sacks in the last five seasons.

While he has mostly logged his reps from the A- and B-gaps, Reader has some experience moving as far out as the 5-technique and rushing from over the tackle spot. In that situation, his presence could demand the attention of the tackle and the extra chip blocker, clearing the way for Burns to still find his quick lanes around the edge to the backfield.

That certainly would be an intriguing tool for Giants defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson to implement in order to empower Burns to author another impressive season and chase that elusive Defensive Player of the Year recognition that he just missed out on in 2025.

No matter what his final stat lines say, the Giants should feel confident that they made the right move trading for their defensive leader, who will continue contributing to the rebirth of the smashmouth style of football that once made the franchise’s unit one of the most feared in the sport during their most recent Super Bowl runs.

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