Albert Breer on Dexter Lawrence's Trade Request, Fernando Mendoza's Raiders Visit, Puka Nacua’s Rehab

For him, personally, this would be an opportunity to look at it and say, if I'm going to get one last big bite of the financial apple, I may have to do it now.

All right.

Welcome in.

It's the Brew Report for April 8th .

We have a little more than 2 weeks to go until the 2026 NFL draft.

The owners' meetings are now in the books and we have a lot to get to on today's Breer report.

We're going to start with the New York Giants All-Pro defensive tackle, Dexter Lawrence.

Requesting a trade and this, I think is indicative of a number of different things.

And we'll cover all of those right here, right now.

Now, the first thing is contractually where he is.

Now, if you look at where Dexter Lawrence is going into year eight, he has 2 years left on his current contract.

He signed a 4-year, $87.

5 million dollar extension in 2023.

Now, here's the key.

He is at the point in his contract when the guaranteed money has run out.

About $15 million of his money was fully guaranteed last year.

The first two years of his contract, 23 and 24 were largely fully guaranteed.

And in today's NFL this is where we've gotten with a lot of these guys, the star players will start to make noise about their contracts once you get out of the guaranteed money and into a position where the team has more control.

And so, what Dexter Lawrence has left is now a great deal for the team.

They got him for $20 million this year, they got him for $20 million next year.

None of that money is guaranteed.

He turns 29 in November.

The other thing to look at here is where he's at in his career, and that he had an incredible Defensive Player of the Year or of the Year in 2024, and he was a little less than that in 2025.

Now he's got a new coaching staff, coaching staff coming on.

We'll get to that in a second.

And so for him, personally, this would be an opportunity to look at it and say, if I'm going to get one last big bite of the financial apple, I may have to do it now.

Because a year from now, the team could be looking at me going into a contract year and say he's about to turn 30, he's not worth the money that he was once before.

Still 28 right now, as it stands, we are.

Uh, about 6 months shy of his, of his, of his 29th birthday.

And so the chance to capitalize again in the prime of his career just makes sense from a stand from a timing standpoint, especially with a new coach coming in.

And then the third thing, and I think this is a really important thing is where the new coaching staff stands on him.

And taking advantage of a situation where the new coaching staff clearly sees him as a cornerstone.

In fact, John Harbaugh has used that word with, with, with Dexter Lawrence, that he is a cornerstone of what they want to do defensively with, um, with the, with the new Ravens-style defense coming in with Dennard Wilson set to run that defense.

Um, Dexter Lawrence is the type of player that they plan to build around.

So knowing that that's his value to the new coaching staff also makes it an opportune time to ask for the money.

Um, ultimately, they weren't able to get to where they needed to go monetarily, so now the next step is to ask for a trade.

Do I think that Dexter Lawrence is gonna play somewhere else next year?

No.

Do I think he's frustrated with where contract negotiations are?

Yes.

So this is the way that you push to get what you want.

Um, you know, ultimately, again, I don't think it'd be totally out of line for the, the, the, the Giants to, to, to, to amend Dexter Lawrence's deal in some way or do an entirely new deal with him, given that, again, there's only 2 years left on his contract.

The question you ask then is that, is, is, is if you do do that, does that move other people up into the line to, to, to, to be taken care of contractually, something you have to consider.

Um, but to me, it makes sense that Dexter Lawrence would ask for that sort of money now.

Again, because of where he is contractually the guaranteed money, because he had a great year two years ago, and not as great year last year.

So you wonder if he's ever gonna, if, if you're him, you gotta, you know, wonder if you're ever gonna be able to capitalize the way you can right now again.

And because you're turning 29 in November, same thing, and then because of how your coaching staff.

Use you coming in as a new coaching staff with a, uh, with a holdover general manager.

I think you put all of it together, eventually they'll be able to figure something out.

Um, but it's an interesting one to pay attention to going forward, of course.

The Giants will get calls on Dexter Lawrence.

There's no question about that.

He is an incredibly valuable piece of what they do and who they are.

Uh, the market has changed, defensive tackle, are you willing to go over $30 million a year to, to keep him?

What is somebody else willing to give up for him?

That'll dictate whether or not like the trade talks ever become real, but as it stands right now, this feels like a little bit more of a negotiating tactic than anything else.

All right, our second topic, Fernando Mendoza was in Las Vegas yesterday, visiting with the Raiders.

This is going to be made out to be a big deal.

I'm here to tell you it's just part of what's been a much larger process for Las Vegas.

This is not some coronation.

This has happened over the course of time as they vetted the quarterbacks in this year's class, which has led them down the road to where in all likelihood, Two weeks from tomorrow, they will take Mendoza first overall .

Um, these are important for him to sit down with the guys that he's gonna be working for.

That's important.

Teams are only allotted 30 of these.

They can't be workouts.

He won't be throwing the ball.

They're allowed to give the guy a physical.

They're allowed to bring him in and sit down with him and take him to dinner.

They can put him on the board, all that different stuff, but they cannot work him out.

So there's no actual football involved in this .

Um, and again, it's part of a much, much larger process that teams go through with quarterbacks.

And really for the Raiders, this goes all the way back to the fall.

They had an idea that they would be drafting their quarterback of the future in 2026.

And so they Spent a lot of time in the fall, going out and seeing the prospects live.

They went and saw a ton of guys that they expected to be in the 2026 draft class.

Some of them didn't wind up coming out, Brendan Soarsby, Dante Moore, some of them did wind up coming out like Fernando Mendoza.

So as Mendoza's season unfolded, as he started to emerge as a potential top 5, top 10 pick, the Raiders started to drill down on him and send higher-level personnel out to see him .

So, the general manager, John Spytek was at his game on Thanksgiving weekend at Purdue, frigid night at Purdue.

I think that was the coldest game in Purdue football history.

Uh, then saw Mendoza again live against Oregon in the Peach Bowl and finally saw him, of course, with Tom Brady there, the national championship game in Miami.

So getting that live look at him, an important thing.

Then the Raiders go back, they look at every snap that he has played both at Cal and Indiana.

So they have all that work done.

They've had their meetings.

They have a fifteen-minute formal with him at the combine, which is the first chance that they're gonna have to sit down and talk with him.

So they checked that box, and then last week, right after the owners' meetings, John Spyk and Clint Kubiak got in a plane and flew to Indiana to go to IU for his pro day.

And it wasn't just the two of them representing the Raiders there.

It was also Assistant General Manager Brian Stark, vice president of player personnel, Brandon Hunt, college scouting director Brandon Yergan , offensive coordinator, Andrew Ginoco, and quarterbacks coach, Mike Sullivan.

And so that was a workout, that was a whiteboard session, that was a dinner, and now, Mendoza has wrapped up his meetings in Las Vegas with the team.

And so really all that's left is a couple of Zooms.

He's already done one.

The team's allowed to do 2 more 1-hour Zooms with him.

And then the process will be complete.

And really to me the tell here was where the Raiders were at the end of the NFL regular season, which for the most part was looking at two guys that they viewed as very worthy of being the first overall pick .

One was Mendoza, the other was Oregon quarterback Dante Moore.

My feeling, and this is just my sense of it, my feeling is that once Dante Moore decided to return to Oregon for his senior year, That was really it.

At that point, it was Mendoza is almost certainly gonna be the #1 overall pick.

They've done so much work on him already.

What the last few months have been about is confirming everything that they had studied, everything that they had dug up on Mendoza.

My understanding is, what is, is what you get here, what they thought they'd be getting in Mendoza.

Is what they've gotten over the course of the last couple of months.

So, all signs now point to Mendoza being the first overall pick on the night of April 23rd.

Finally, um, our third topic for today, the Puka Nua situation.

Um, his lawyer is out there having said now that, uh, he has checked himself into rehab.

Obviously, first and foremost, um, we'd hope that Pukunakua is OK.

I think it's a great thing that he's getting himself right now.

Um, there have been obviously some Incidents over the course of the last 6 or 7 months that have not reflected well on Puka, that have not reflected well on the Rams.

There's a situation with the root, the YouTuber, and the anti-Semitic dance that the YouTubers got him um to agree.

To perform in a game.

Um, he didn't know what they were having him do then, um, but, you know, obviously not a good look, um, to be involved in something like that, even if he didn't know.

Um, then there was the criticism of the the officials of what she was fined for, and then more recently , the lawsuit with a woman alleging that he had bit her.

Look, if none of this is true, if all the things that Puka has been accused of aren't true.

There's still the element of finding your way into the right situations and the wrong situations when you're that age.

And part of the issue the Rams have here is that Puka is continually put himself in situations where he's exposed to these sorts of things happening.

And that's how they're hoping he'll , and that's where they're where they're hoping he'll grow and grow and come out of this.

And, um, you know, again, you, you, you look at a situation like this, and clearly, um, he's got a lot of growing up to do.

Um, and this is a big year for him because this is when he's first eligible for a new contract, and I think the likelihood all along because of all of this has been that he would do that deal over the summer.

I think the Rams wanted to see him take care of his business off the field for an extended period of time before rewarding him.

Um, the template for the contract is out there.

His numbers are very similar to Jackson Smith and Jigba, who was a draft classmate of his, and who just got a deal, an extension.

Um, for $168.

6 million over four years, he'd be in line from a performance perspective for that sort of deal.

In between the lines, the Rams are all in on him.

They love the sort of player he is, the sort of teammate he's been.

They also really love the person, and they don't think that a lot of these things reflect on who he truly is as a person.

But if they keep happening, they do become who you are.

And so, the focus now is on cleaning that up.

I think he's taken a good step in checking himself into rehab, and you hope then he has a good May, a good June, a good July, keeps his nose clean, proves that he's grown up, and then maybe we're talking about a new deal.

Before the season begins.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

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