Jaire Alexander remains a riddle locked in an enigma.
But the longer this drags on, the more convinced I am that Alexander will be coming back to Green Bay in 2025.
“He’s definitely a player we need back,” said Jordan Love last month. “Just the play style he plays with, who he is on the field. I mean, that’s a guy we need to have around.”
Alexander has a cap hit of $24.6 million for 2025, which is 8.3 percent of Green Bay’s salary cap. It’s not a question of if the Packers can pay the player that has been a two-time Pro Bowler in seven seasons, it’s a question of should.
In 2021, he played four games because of a shoulder injury. He then signed a four-year, $84 million contract extension in 2022 making him the highest-paid cornerback in the game. And in 2023 he played seven games followed by only seven more in 2024.
The Packers and the 28-year-old are clearly at a crossroads. The Packers want him to realize that he isn’t the same player that inked that huge extension three years ago. They want him to take a team-friendly pay cut, because the Packers are not sure of his availability. Alexander has played in every regular season game of his career only once and that was in 2019. Alexander obviously is upset that the Packers are even hinting at taking a pay cut. He only played in seven games this past season, but had a couple picks and even returned one 35 yards for a touchdown against Tennessee.
“Locker room-wise, he’s a character,” Love said. “You never know what you’re going to get with JA. He’s a guy who interacts with everybody on the team, and he jokes around, but he also has that serious side to him. A competitor.”
If Alexander stays with the Packers combined with the addition of Nate Hobbs, the Packers defensive backfield looks solid. But the moment Alexander gets traded, the questions will start to swirl if Hobbs can be a shutdown corner in the league. Is he the guy to stop Justin Jefferson or Amon-Ra St. Brown? That was always Alexander’s job in the past and he did it well when he was healthy, but can he still maintain that same level of production after missing so much time?
If you think things are sticky heading into this season for Alexander’s contract, it only gets worse in 2026. The cap number rises to $26 million, which would be 9.1 percent of the team’s cap number. The good news is if the Packers cut him before June 1, 2025, they would net a cap savings of $17.4 million.
And that’s where I think this is headed. The Packers would love it if Alexander restructured for 2025, but if he doesn’t, they will use the year as a proving ground. If he doesn’t live up to his contract, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Packers release him before the 2026 season in order to save a large amount of money.
Alexander has proven that he can play in this league. He is well-liked by everyone in the locker room. But you cannot underplay your contract as a pro and not expect something to happen. He has underplayed his contract the last two seasons. It looks like the Packers are willing to see him prove it in 2025, but underplaying a contract for the third straight year would be a sign that something needs to change.