Packers won’t find trade partner for Jaire Alexander
Alexander is due $17.5 million in cash in 2025
The Green Bay Packers and their two-time All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander are headed for a breakup. The only question now is whether or not Green Bay will get anything back for him or if they’ll have to release Alexander straight up due to his cap hit and inability to stay healthy. Over the last four seasons, Alexander has played seven games or fewer three times.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported last week that the Packers have had trade discussions about Alexander with teams. A day later, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Silverstein claimed that a source told him that Alexander’s camp and Green Bay had never talked about a potential pay cut “because they know Alexander wouldn’t accept it.”
In his post-combine notebook, FOX Sports NFL insider Jordan Schultz has now reported that “most executives believe the Packers will ultimately release” Alexander, which means that he won’t draw legitimate trade interest with his slated 2025 salary. Any team trading for Alexander would then carry his $17.5 million cash payment for 2025 on their salary cap.
Meanwhile, Alexander’s cap hit for the Packers, due to bonuses paid out in the past, is at $25.5 million for 2025. If Green Bay releases him without a post-June 1st designation or trades him, they’ll assume a dead cap of around $19.1 million, meaning they’ll save roughly $6 million in cap space by moving on from Alexander.
With a release, the Packers can designate Alexander as a post-June 1st cap casualty, meaning that they’d pay $8.5 million of his dead cap in 2025 and $10.7 million in 2026, but they’d have to then carry his full $25.5 million cap hit until the summer — well after the peak of free agency.
If Green Bay is planning on releasing Alexander, they will need to decide quickly whether they want the cornerback completely off of their books for the 2026 season or if they’d rather receive some extra cap space starting in June of 2025 at the expense of eight-figure dead cap number in 2026.
