Uncertainty ahead for Jaire Alexander and Packers entering 2025 offseason

Paul Bretl | 1/18/2025

GREEN BAY, Wis. — As the Packers enter the 2025 NFL offseason, there are some unknowns around what the future holds for former All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander in regards to his status with the team.

“I think we’ll work through that,” said GM Brian Gutekunst on Thursday. “Sure we can. I know it’s been really, really frustrating for not only him as a player, but us as a club. Just when you have a player, who’s done what he’s done for us in the past, and then not being able to get him out on the field consistently, that’s tough.”

Alexander suffered a torn posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) in his right knee late in the Packers’ Week 8 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, on a play in the end zone where he attempted to make a play on the football but came down awkwardly and injured his knee in the process.

Following Green Bay’s Week 10 bye, Alexander made an attempt to return to the field against Chicago in Week 11. However, he would reinjure his knee in that game and played only 10 snaps before exiting.

For several weeks, it seemed like Alexander was trending in the right direction. Prior to the Detroit game in Week 14, he returned to practice in a limited capacity for two days before missing the third day. The following week against Seattle, Alexander was a full participant for two days of practice before missing the third day, with LaFleur saying that he was not hitting the needed speeds in practice to play effectively that week.

A week later against New Orleans, Alexander returned to practice as a full participant all three days and was listed as questionable for that game. All of that seemed to be positive news up to this point, with Alexander’s workload in practice increasing each week.

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However, when the inactives were announced prior to kickoff of that Saints’ game, Alexander was on that list. Then, most recently, in the week leading up to the Minnesota game, Alexander went from being a full participant to a limited participant to not practicing at all on that Friday, with an apparent setback taking place.

“It’s been tough,” said Xavier McKinney when news broke that Alexander would be getting surgery. “Obviously, he’s dealt with this injury pretty much all year. Obviously, we wanted him to be back out there, but injuries are part of the game. So we understand that. We know that he was working to try to get back, but it’s like every time he was trying to, he would tweak it again.”

Alexander would undergo surgery on December 31st, prior to the Packers’ regular-season finale against Chicago, ending his 2024 season. Of course, the big question, with hindsight always being 20/20, is, should the Packers and Alexander have orchestrated surgery right away when the injury occurred with the hope of him being able to return late in the season?

On Monday this past week, when players were cleaning out their lockers following the loss to Philadelphia, Alexander was asked by local media members to speak, but he declined, adding that he doesn’t know if he will be in Green Bay next season and that he doesn’t have anything good to say.

When Gutekunst was asked if there was any disconnect between Alexander and the team following this season, he was adamant that wasn’t the case, but instead, there was natural frustration that comes with missing time.

“No, no, no,” Gutekunst said. “I mean, again, there’s frustration, I think, on both sides, from the fact that he can’t get out there, you know? And that’s tough, you know. I mean, I feel for him because he wants to be out there and he wants to play. But no disconnect.”

When on the field, Alexander continues to operate at a high level. This includes this past season allowing a completion rate of just 56% on 25 targets with a pick-six and three pass breakups. Unfortunately, due to injuries, Alexander often hasn’t been available.

Since the 2021 season, he has appeared in only 34 our of a possible 68 games. This includes playing only four games in 2021, and seven games in 2023 and 2024. During the 2022 season, when he made 16 starts, Alexander was a second-team All-Pro.

Alexander still has two years remaining on his contract. In 2025, he has a base salary of $16.15 million and a cap hit just shy of $25 million, according to Over the Cap. If the team were to release or trade him, a dead cap hit–or money still on the 2025 salary cap–of $18.11 million would be left behind, but it would free up $6.83 million in cap space for the 2025 season.

“It’s tough on the player, tough on the organization,” Gutekunst said of the injuries. “So we’ll kind of, as we start, we’re at the beginning stages of just kind of gathering information as a whole before we start looking at next year and how we’re going to lay this thing out. But we could. I mean, obviously, when he’s healthy and he’s ready to play, he’s a pretty good player.”

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