The New York Giants added Dean Lowry to their practice squad on Tuesday, giving the team another experienced body for an interior defensive line that has been pushed and pulled by injuries and roster churn all season. The move followed a report from The Athletic’s Dan Duggan.
Lowry is 32 and arrives with a long NFL résumé that began when the Green Bay Packers drafted him in the fourth round of the 2016 draft out of Northwestern. He spent seven seasons with Green Bay, posted a career-high five sacks in 2021, then moved on to the Minnesota Vikings in 2023 before joining the Pittsburgh Steelers the following offseason on another multi-year contract.
That track record is what makes the signing notable now. Across 132 career regular-season games and 85 starts, Lowry has 271 tackles, 16.5 sacks, 18 passes defensed, one interception, one forced fumble and five fumble recoveries. He appeared in 12 games for Pittsburgh in 2024 and finished with five tackles, one sack and one pass deflection, production that shows he can still help in a rotation even if he is not coming in to reclaim a starting job.
The Giants needed more than that kind of depth. They traded All-Pro nose tackle Dexter Lawrence to the Cincinnati Bengals in the spring for the No. 10 overall pick in the 2026 draft, then signed veterans D.J. Reader and Shelby Harris to help fill the void at defensive tackle. Lowry fits that same search for reliable size and experience, not a promise of major snaps.
The catch is his recent health. Pittsburgh re-signed Lowry last spring, then released him during final roster cuts after he spent the entire 2025 season on injured reserve recovering from an ACL tear suffered in training camp. The Giants had explored a similar arrangement with him in early September, but nothing advanced until Tuesday, when the practice-squad deal finally went through.
That leaves one practical question for the Giants: whether Lowry is elevated for game days if the front keeps thinning. For now, he is in place as a familiar, veteran insurance policy, and that alone tells you where the Giants see this move fitting — less as a headline addition than as a way to keep the middle of the defense covered.
