The Baltimore Ravens need to keep adding talent in the defensive backfield. Defeating the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs in the postseason requires limiting elite quarterbacks and their weapons. Speaking of weapons, Baltimore's own divisional rival ensured Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins will be on the same team for four more years.
Chidobe Awuzie was added to the equation last month, but the Ravens still only have five cornerbacks on the roster. Options on the veteran free agent market are a bit slim at the moment, but there is a move Baltimore could make to secure someone better.
Outlining a possible Ravens trade for Green Bay Packers CB Jaire Alexander
The Green Bay Packers are open to trading away cornerback Jaire Alexander. The former two-time Pro Bowl defensive back has dealt with injuries in recent years and is accounting for $24,636,355 in salary cap space.
A to Z Sports Packers staff writer Wendell Ferreira believes the Ravens make sense as a landing spot for Alexander, but there are complications to overcome with the contract at hand.
This is a little trickier because the Ravens only have $11.4 million in cap space, $8.4 million projected after they sign their draft picks. However, Baltimore loves to acquire distressed assets, and parting ways with a low draft pick to get a former All-Pro player seems like a perfect match. It would be possible to restructure Alexander's contract to make it work financially, so it's ultimately easy to pull it off. The Ravens have good depth in the secondary, but that's helpful because Alexander wouldn't have to be on the field all the time.
The Ravens are used to being up against the cap since Lamar Jackson's massive contract extension in 2023. They restructured cornerback Marlon Humphrey's contract and backload Ronnie Stanley's new deal in order to stay cap compliant, and they still have 30 offseason roster spots open.
As Ferrieira mentions, restructuring Alexander's deal would be the only way this trade could work.
Baltimore would only be on the hook for the cash Alexander has yet to collect in his deal. That amounts to $17,043,182 for this year, and it'll rise to $19.5 million next year. The work around is putting most of that money into a prorated signing bonus that gets spread out over the remainder of the deal. The Ravens could also add void years to this modified deal to lessen the cap hit even more. There's already one void year attached to the current deal.
That's the complicated aspect. The simple one is the trade compensation. Baltimore has five picks between the fifth- and sixth-round in the 2025 NFL Draft. The Packers can't command a higher price because of Alexander's recent injury history and contract. Any of those picks would be enticing for Green Bay.
The Ravens would eventually take on a smaller cap hit for a player who used to be one of the very best at his position not too long ago, and the cost to acquire him would be cheap as well. It's a deal general manager Eric DeCosta should consider with the draft just two weeks away.
