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The Packers’ cornerback saga has taken an unexpectedly final turn with the release of Jaire Alexander.
One of the Green Bay Packers’ strangest sagas in recent history — a history replete with strangeness — has apparently taken its final surprising turn. The Packers and Jaire Alexander have finally settled on a plan for the Pro Bowl cornerback’s future, and it will not be in Green Bay.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler and Rob Demovsky, the Packers are going to release Alexander from his contract shortly.
Alexander’s contract, which ran through 2026, was set to pay him $17.5 million in cash this season and carry a salary cap hit of $24.6 million. By releasing him after June 1st, the Packers will free up over $17 million in cap space for this season, carrying about $7.5 million in dead money in 2025. The team will then absorb $9.5 million in dead money in 2026, which is the remainder of his signing bonus money that is amortized onto the 2026 and 2027 cap years.
The main sticking point for the Packers all offseason has been Alexander’s availability, or lack thereof. After signing his most recent contract extension in May of 2022, he was a second-team All-Pro and set a career-high with five interceptions that fall. However, since then he has suited up for just seven regular season games in each of the last two seasons, while also causing some headaches for the Packers off the field.
Still, there were signs that the two sides may have been coming together in recent weeks. Alexander showed up for the team’s virtual meetings at the start of the offseason program (though missed parts of OTAs) and was reportedly planning to appear at this week’s mandatory minicamp. Reporting had indicated that the two sides were working on modifying his contract to shift much of his base salary into incentives based around playing time, but it appears that those negotiations fell apart.
One of the games Alexander missed in 2023 was because of an incident when the Packers played the Carolina Panthers in his hometown of Charlotte. Alexander nearly messed up the coin toss before that game despite not being designated as a team captain, and the Packers suspended him for the following contest. Although the player and team said publicly that the suspension did not impact their long-term relationship, it was the first sign of significant cracks between the two sides.
Throughout this offseason, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has been coy about the team’s plans for Alexander, but he has frequently alluded to the possibility of him not being a part of the team’s plans. At the NFL meetings in late March, he told reporters “We invested a lot in Jaire, and we want to make sure that if he’s not going to be on our football team, helping us win games, that we get something back for that investment.”
Instead, the Packers were unable to find a trade partner before or during the 2025 NFL...
