CARBURN COPY
Big Blue's new star pass rusher a spitting image of stud Thibodeaux
You want to know what sort of player the Giants acquired when they opened up free agency with a big deal of a trade to get Brian Burns? If you are familiar with Kayvon Thibodeaux, you have a head start understanding what Burns will bring to the defense in general and the pass rush in particular.
Both are 6-foot-5. Thibodeaux is 258 pounds. Burns is 250. Both line up as defensive ends or outside linebackers, depending on the front. Both are more athletic than they are physically dominating. Together, the Giants hope these two newly paired bookends will lead the charge, with Dexter Lawrence in the middle, along the defensive line for years to come.
Burns came to the Giants on Monday in a sign-and-trade with the Panthers. The Giants sent a 2024 second-round pick, a 2025 fifth-round pick and exchanged 2024 fifth-round picks with the Panthers to get Burns, and then secured him with a five-year deal worth $141 million.
“He’s got some power, like Kayvon, not great power, but enough that he can shock you and he can rock you and he can get you off balance, but he’s not gonna run right through you,” Brian Baldinger, the former NFL offensive lineman now an NFL Network analyst, told
The Post on Tuesday.
“He doesn’t have that type of power, and Kayvon is like that, too.
I think they’re very similar in that they have very good quickness, very good suddenness and they’re good athletes, they stay on their feet.
“He’s not [Hall of Famer Michael] Strahan, just gonna overpower you, go through you or around you. He’d rather go around you, which, honestly, you’d rather have anyway because they have a better chance of winning. When they go up against average athletes they’re going to have more success.”
Make no mistake, Baldinger views Burns as a significant pickup for the Giants. The extravagant money, well, that is the way free agency works. Should Burns be the NFL’s second highest-paid defensive end, behind only Nick Bosa of the 49ers, ahead of Myles Garrett?
“He’s a good player, sometimes he’s really good,” Baldinger said. “Like a lot of guys that are sort of undersized at that position, he gets swallowed up sometimes, too. It’s just an awful lot of money to throw at one player. You better hope the offense can score some points this year.”
Burns, who turns 26 next month, had 46 sacks in five seasons (80 games) with the Panthers. Only once did he reach double-digit sacks in a season, when he had a career-high 12.5 in 2021, the second of his back-to-back years making the Pro Bowl. Thibodeaux in his 31 games with the Giants has 15.5 sacks, including a team-high 11.5 last season. Here is another thing Burns and Thibodeaux have in common: Both players have little idea what it is like to play game after NFL game with his team in a commanding position.
“It’s a lot easier to go get 12 or 15 sacks if you’re playing with a lead,” Baldinger said. “Those things are real. Brian Burns, people are saying, ‘They paid $150 million for a guy who got eight sacks.’ Well, I’m watching the Detroit game last year and it’s 35-7 in the third quarter. You’re not going to get many chances to rush the quarterback.”
It was actually 28-10 in the third quarter of the Panthers’ eventual 42-24 loss to the Lions, but the point made by Baldinger can withstand a slight scoring discrepancy. Burns and Thibodeaux have rarely played from ahead, rarely allowed to rush the passer with reckless abandon, knowing that the passer must throw, throw, throw, trying to mount a comeback.
“They’re getting a talented player, he’s been real healthy, he’s a true linebacker, he can drop into coverage and can cover tight ends, although that’s not something you want him to do a lot,” Baldinger said.
Adding Burns was not a luxury for the Giants. After Thibodeaux, they did not have a legitimate and reliable edge rusher on the roster. Azeez Ojulari, a 2021 second-round pick, has 16 sacks in 35 games but injuries limited him to only 18 games the past two seasons. Ojulari, who turns 24 in June, will enter the final year of his contract.
“When you miss on Azeez Ojulari in the second round it doesn’t go away, it just hovers,” Baldinger said. “I feel Kayvon needs a guy, like they all do, that’s why San Francisco went out and got Leonard Floyd. Every guy needs a guy opposite him. And you need a guy inside. You need three. If you can get four that’s great. You need a guy that’s gonna win the one-on-ones, flush the quarterback, move the quarterback off the spot and the other two guys come in for the kill.”
The Giants now believe they have one more of them.