You’re initial thought after seeing the contract that Denzel Ward agreed to with the Cleveland Browns may have been something along the lines of, so what does this mean for the Green Bay Packers and Jaire Alexander?
Ward, who was drafted the same year as Alexander, reached an agreement with the Browns on a five-year deal worth $100.5 million — making him the highest-paid cornerback in football, thus surpassing Jalen Ramsey — with $71.25 million in guarantees.
The Packers have been in discussions with Alexander about an extension of his own since at least the NFL combine, when it was first reported, and perhaps even before then.
Alexander is currently set to play on his fifth-year option for the 2022 season, which comes with a cap hit of $13.2 million, and if an extension isn’t reached, he would become a free agent next offseason.
While every new big market deal at the cornerback position has the potential to affect negotiations between the Packers and Alexander, who is expected to become the league’s highest-paid player at that position, I can’t imagine this new deal for Ward changes much for either party.
Ward may have become the NFL’s newest top paid cornerback, earning $20.1 million per year on average, but Ramsey’s previous record-setting deal was for $20 million. While this is certainly one big payday for Ward, it’s also not as if it has thrown the entire cornerback market for a loop.
In fact, we could consider it good news that Ramsey’s average annual value (AAV) was used and not the $25.34 million per year benchmark that Miami’s Xavien Howard recently signed on a two-year extension.
Howard had three years remaining on his previous deal, and the Dolphins added on two years with $50.69 million in new money–which is where that $25.34 million AAV figure comes from. The total value of the contract, however — the new money plus the existing money — equals $90 million and over the five years averages out to $18 million per season.
We’ve seen examples like this, where the AAV of the new money and not the AAV of the entire contract value becomes the benchmark at the receiver and offensive tackle positions in recent years.
De’Andre Hopkins signed a two-year extension with Arizona that infused $54.5 million in new money into an already existing deal, and the $27.25 million AAV became the number that Davante Adams wanted to surpass. At offensive tackle, Laremy Tunsil received a three-year extension with a $22 million AAV over that span, and the Packers would sign David Bakhtiari to a long-term extension that surpassed that mark.
Following the news that Howard had signed that extension, I wrote an article asking whether or not this deal would impact negotiations between the Green Bay Packers and Alexander. Based on Ward’s new contract, it doesn’t look like it will.
We know that the salary cap is an issue for the Green Bay Packers, but when it comes to extending Alexander, Ken Ingalls projects that it will actually lower his 2022 cap hit by $5-to-$7 million while still making him the highest-paid cornerback in football.
Nowadays, everyone is much more conscious of the salary cap, including myself, which I do find to be a positive because it plays such a massive role in team construction. With that said, the Packers having to pay top of the market value for past draft picks is a good thing–it means they are really good players.
However, when it comes to the impact Ward’s deal may have on negotiations, my guess is that it is very minimal. The $20 million per year figure that Ward passed by $100,000 annually was going to be surpassed by Alexander regardless of whether or not this new deal for Denzel happened. If anything, it may be coming to terms on the amount of guaranteed money that could be slowing things up.
The Green Bay Packers are still going to extend Alexander, they’re still going to make him the highest-paid cornerback in football, and Ward’s new deal won’t change any of that.