Giants Country

Brian Burns Among Top Highest Paid Edge Rushers in NFL: Is He Worth It?

The market for elite pocket disruptors has soared once again ahead of the 2025 season and one Giants defender is still apart of the biggest grossers at the position.

Stephen Lebitsch

Jan 5, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Giants linebacker Brian Burns (0) takes the field for action against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field.
Jan 5, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Giants linebacker Brian Burns (0) takes the field for action against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
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As the NFL’s recent mega signing between All-Pro edge rusher Myles Garrett and the Cleveland Browns has indicated, no team can ever really put a strict number on the value of boasting a high-quality pass-rushing producer.

Before resigning their lead pressure guy to a whopping four-year extension worth $204.7 million with an average annual value of $40 million, Garrett was on the verge of moving his talents to another city after demanding a trade from the Browns following another miserable season that ended with a 3-14 record and their 14th losing in the last 17 campaigns. 

There was never any debate that Garrett was instrumental to what the Browns had accomplished on defense each year. The 29-year-old and former No. 1 overall pick hasn’t produced less than 10 sacks since his debut, including 14 in the 2023 season that saw Cleveland rank first in opponent yards and a repeat this past season that finished second best in the league. 

Thus, the Browns, who, like the New York Giants, are trying to build a solid roster around a possible rookie quarterback, eventually came to their senses and offered the new deal to their defensive stud. 

As the old expression says, “money talks,” so all was well in the world as they retained Garrett to hopefully cause some pocket trouble in a tough AFC North division next season.

Not very long ago, the Giants precluded Cleveland with a similar approach when securing their newest stalwart, outside linebacker Brian Burns, last spring.  

In the second year of the Schoen-Daboll regime, the team had just finished 12th in pass rush win rate during the 2023 season, which wasn’t surprising given the exotic Wink Martindale-led system they played under. New York had some promising talent on the perimeter but never the one player who held the individual consistency factor year after year.

New York Giants outside linebacker Brian Burns
New York Giants linebacker Brian Burns (0) rushes past the offensive line during a game between the New York Giants and the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. / Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

So, in what was dubbed their biggest move of the offseason, Joe Schoen spoke at the Senior Bowl with his friend and Carolina Panthers general manager Dan Morgan about a potential exchange regarding the two-time Pro Bowler in Burns. 

Those talks featured on Hard Knocks led to the Giants luring him and agreeing to a massive five-year, $141 million contract that lifted him into the game’s highest-paid edge rushers. 

As a new analysis by Pro Football Network showed, he remains ranked fifth in that club with an AAV of $28.2 million as the 2025 league year tips off. 

“Burns has been consistent since entering the league, posting at least 7.5 sacks and 15 QB hits in each season,” the analysis said. “He logged 8.5 sacks in his Big Blue debut season and could be a focal point of New York’s defense for a long time.”

Like Garrett and a few others from the distinguished list, Burns’ pact with the Giants came at a time when he was constantly the subject of trade rumors with the Panthers. 

The 26-year-old pass rusher was always on top of his game, forcing over 40 pressures in four of his five seasons there, but this never really helped the franchise record a ton of wins. 

The impact was much more obvious once he was traded to the Big Apple despite the Giants not winning as many games in 2024.

In addition to his sacks, Burns tallied 61 total pressures, the second-highest number of his career, including 10 quarterback hits and 42 hurries, and held his lowest missed tackle rate against the run (11.6%) since the 2021 season.

The Giants paired Burns alongside defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II and fellow edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux to showcase a flashy trio that combined to give the team 23 of its 45 total sacks this past season.

With Lawrence eventually put aside by a season-ending elbow injury, the newest member of the three stepped up and largely kept them in a semblance of pass-rushing royalty. 

As the Giants were racking up the quarterback takedowns in the first half of the season, Burns was in the spotlight as he collected six in his first 19 contests in blue.

He even had a streak of four straight games with at least one sack from Weeks 5 through 8 when the Giants saw some of their tougher defensive matchups of the schedule. 

In the final five weeks of the season, when New York needed a new face to replace Lawrence’s team-leading nine sacks and keep them afloat in an already dismal year, Burns answered the bell with 2.5 more to go alongside his 17 tackles for loss and 71 total tackles, which finished fifth on the Giants defense and ranked them 13th in pass rush win rate at the end of the season.

There is no discounting the impact of playing in a front-focused system with Shane Bowen for Burns’ debut year with the Giants, either.

He has one of the best metaphorical toolboxes when it comes to one-on-one matchups and winning those tireless swim moves that put the feeling of pressure on a quarterback quickly. 

He was able to utilize them a lot more as the Giants sent four at the pocket and let him do his thing on the outside, often commanding the attention of two offensive linemen and opening chances for his teammates to feast.

With the added attention, he still had his best pass-rushing grade (82.6) since his sophomore campaign and never left the field until the job was done. 

As it turns out, Burns’s efforts outmatched many of the names on PFN’s list except for Garett and 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa.

He also finished second in the NFC behind Micah Parsons with 59 pass rush wins in 256 snaps and recorded a 23% win rate, with 16% of those victories on the edge against solid starting offensive tackles. 

Thus, the fact that the Giants landed one of the league’s most consistent pocket destructors at the price they agreed to doesn’t seem as much of a reach by Joe Scheon as some might have thought before the 2024 season started for a team that ultimately went 3-14 and is still a ways off from true contention. 

The Giants don’t need to look further than their own divisional rival, the Philadelphia Eagles, to see what building an elite pass-rushing room can do for one’s chances at reaching the pinnacle. Philadelphia had a slew of talent that they signed or developed in their system, which rode them to 41 combined sacks and a trip to Super Bowl LIX, which they dominated starting up front. 

The Eagles couldn’t hold onto all those weapons in free agency as their cap space is much stricter than the Giants', but those players landed more lucrative deals elsewhere because of their contributions to winning their franchise the Lombardi Trophy. They owned the eighth-best unit last fall and will likely continue to prop up their electric offense with that level of play in 2025.

The Giants remember those days all too well, especially in their two runs to the Big Game in 2007 and 2011, when their party of quarterback chasers was one of the biggest stories. They carried them from wild card hopefuls to the franchise that upset the Patriots twice with just a respectable amount of offense. 

While they’re seeking to balance things out this offseason, figuring out the defense could be the Giants' ticket back into relevance, let alone the highest peak of the sport. 

They’ve already added some talent to the equation, but none is more key to their plan than Burns, who will remain on the team’s radars as long as he is causing havoc in the backfield. 

So, was pushing a lot of money into a top-10 edge player worth it for the Giants? 

The answer is yes, and the value will continue to become more of a bargain as he excels and the market rises for the next candidate.

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Stephen Lebitsch
STEPHEN LEBITSCH

“Stephen Lebitsch is a graduate of Fordham University, Class of 2021, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communications (with a minor in Sports Journalism) and spent three years as a staff writer for The Fordham Ram. With his education and immense passion for the space, he is looking to transfer his knowledge and talents into a career in the sports media industry. Along with his work for the FanNation network and Giants Country, Stephen’s stops include Minute Media and Talking Points Sports.

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