With no hard deadlines, Green Bay is in complete control of the situation.
In the seemingly endless slow-motion saga of Jaire Alexander and the Green Bay Packers, ESPN’s Rob Demovsky reported that there are frustrations internally regarding the player’s inability to stay on the field. The most important part of the report is this quote below:
There are strong indications that Alexander’s time with the Packers will end without him playing another down. Multiple team sources have privately expressed their frustration with Alexander’s inability to stay healthy and/or play through injuries.
Between this, the fact that Jaire Alexander is due to make north of $17M in cash in 2025 (assuming he were to attend off-season workouts and collect his $700k bonus for doing so), and the reality that Green Bay can move on from Alexander without damaging their short-term cap accounting, it has led many to the conclusion that Alexander is a certainty to be released. I’m not here to say that Alexander will not be released. I think the most likely outcome today is just that. It’s pretty rare for Packers internal sources to say too much about their players unless things are reaching a breaking point like they did with Aaron Rodgers; seemingly, they are approaching such a situation with Jaire Alexander.
In this situation, though, it is the Packers who are in full control. Alexander has no particular deadlines to worry about in his contract, outside from his off-season workout bonus, which he won’t be able to earn until late May if prior off-season schedules are any indication. There is no roster bonus coming on the first, third, fifth, or any other day of the league year.
And unlike much of the past five years, the Packers don’t need to scratch and claw to reach cap compliance. The Packers will be sitting with just north of $38M in cap space when the league year starts, and while not all of that is truly available to use to add talent in free agency due to the draft class, practice squads, and in-season flexibility, those are all cap hits that won’t come to fruition until May or June at the earliest. The Packers can do whatever they want to do in free agency without having to necessarily worry about Jaire Alexander’s cap hit holding them back. The Packers aren’t going to burn up $38M of space in free agency this year, so Jaire’s cap accounting does not bear any issue for them in adding veteran talent. And if they decide to cut him down the road, they’ll free up a little over $6.8M (assuming they do not designate it as a post-6/1 release, which would give them more relief this year but spread the dead cap across two seasons).
Because there is no roster bonus deadline and because Green Bay does not need the additional cap flexibility that a Jaire Alexander release would entail, this puts them in a position of strength if they are open to Alexander returning, but just not at his current salary. Because the NFL is a salary-capped league, most of the dollars/cap space are burned up within the first few days of free agency. Because Green Bay does not need to be in a rush to get off of him, they don’t need to release him early on. The Packers can keep Alexander on their books all the way through March, which will keep Alexander off the market through the first, second, and third waves of free agency.
This creates leverage for Green Bay negotiating on what financial terms Alexander could return, if that is something the team is interested in. I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that Jaire Alexander will not be back in Green Bay on his current contract. The Packers aren’t going to pay him $17M next year without some serious strings attached to that. It also seems highly unlikely anyone is going to pay Alexander $17M to play in 2025. Which, with the timeline outlined earlier, puts Green Bay in the driver’s seat to drive a hard bargain.
Because so much of the NFL’s spending is extremely front-loaded in the off-season, the Packers ability to keep Alexander on the roster means that most teams will have spent their money by the the time a theoretical Alexander release could happen. Now, that is not to say that there will be no money available, but the market will be more limited by April, particularly when it comes to offering eight-figure salaries. Green Bay can then offer Alexander a re-worked deal. The Packers did something similar with Preston Smith this past off-season. Alexander would have to materially reduce his base salary, but he could retain the ability to earn some of or all of it back via incentives.
The team and Alexander’s representatives can fight and quibble over how they want to do this, but ultimately Green Bay’s concerns should be reflected in how he would earn his full salary back. If availability is the primary concern, increasing his per-game active roster bonuses is an easy path to go down. If they want to insulate themselves from a potential decline in performance or are worried that a disgruntled Alexander may not given them the performance levels they want, going down the road of performance or accolade-based incentives remain an option as well. The devil will be in the details. What level of base salary will have to be given up? Which incentives can earn back how much of it? These are the things that are true unknowns at this time, but the answers may be a key determinant as to whether Alexander is a Packer in 2025.
If Alexander and his representation aren’t amenable to this idea, one I’m sure they will not be thrilled about, then the Packers can call their bluff, string them out and reconvene again late next month once most of the money has dried up. If Alexander is no longer a Packer, he’ll want to hit the market as soon as possible, but Green Bay has all the time in the world.