Xavien Howard Deal Could Raise Bar for Packers & Jaire Alexander
By Paul Bretl
It’s been reported that the Green Bay Packers and Jaire Alexander have been in contract extension talks since at least the NFL combine, if not sooner.
Alexander is currently on his fifth-year option for the 2022 season and comes with a $13.2 million cap hit as a result. Obviously, an extension will help keep one of the game’s top cornerbacks in Green Bay beyond this upcoming season, but it will also lower his 2022 cap hit as well–providing the Packers with some much-needed cap space.
We don’t know where the two sides are at in negotiations or if they are close to a deal or not, but it was assumed that Alexander was going to surpass Jalen Ramsey’s $20 million per year deal, thus making Alexander the highest-paid cornerback in football–something he has certainly earned.
However, there may have been a wrench thrown into those plans on Friday evening. Miami Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard had three years left on his contract, but that has been replaced by a new five-year deal with $50.69 million in new money and totals $90 million over the life of the contract.
Now, where things can get tricky is that the average annual value over the five years is $18 million, but in terms of new money, the average annual value over the two years that were added on is $25.34 million, which could very well become the new figure that Alexander sets his sights on surpassing.
All of a sudden, this situation with Alexander quickly resembles the one that the Green Bay Packers were in with Davante Adams this past year.
Deservedly so, Adams wanted to be the highest-paid receiver in football and was looking at the $27.25 million extension that DeAndre Hopkins received from Arizona as the benchmark. But similarly to Howard’s new deal, Hopkins had three years remaining on his original contract, and it became a five-year deal with $54.5 million in new money added on.
So Hopkins’ average annual value (AAV) over those two new years was the $27.25 million figure. But over the life of the entire five-year contract, his AAV was actually $18.9 million.
In 2020, a similar situation to the two just described also happened at the offensive tackle position when Houston signed Laremy Tunsil to a three-year extension that came with $66 million in new money. But when it came to David Bakhtiari, the Green Bay Packers still made him the highest-paid — at the time — offensive tackle in football.
In addition to the AAV, another important element in these negotiations is going to be how much guaranteed money Alexander will receive as well. Typically the Packers don’t guarantee much, if anything, beyond the first two years of a deal, but with the salary cap increasing and contract values going up, Alexander could be looking for more security.
In terms of whether or not a deal gets done between Alexander and the Packers, I still certainly expect one to. Alexander just turned 25-years-old, he plays one of the most important positions in football, and as already mentioned, he’s one of the best at it.
With that said, coming to an agreement may take some additional time, as I imagine what Alexander was asking for previously is now going to change after seeing what Miami paid Howard.