Good Bye J’aire Alexander

[Heyjoe4]

I 100% would bet my house on the fact that Gute/Ball offered him a contract that when the season was done would have paid him DOUBLE that amount if he just stayed healthy for the most part.

Agreed. The incentive-based contract offered by GB would have paid JA a lot more than this Baltimore deal- as you say, IF, he stayed healthy.

After two years of 50% attendance, it was not unreasonable to negotiate a new contract that was largely performance/appearance-based. JA's decision to go to Baltimore, apparently with a $4 mil salary and up to $2 mil in incentives, seems to acknowledge that JA himself expects to miss games this year. I don't know any other way to interpret this. And I'm not buying the "I took less money to play with my college buddy, Lamar" line. C'mon.

I still like JA and wish him the best, as long as it's not against the Packers. Gluten and Ball made the right call to let him go. After the shoulder injury, he became afraid to tackle. I get that - but CBs have to tackle and have to tackle/play hard. If they can't or are unwilling, the NFL is no place to work.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Jaire was a horrible tackler. Football basics 101 and he got a big red F on tackling. Ow my cuticle tore off..give me my 6 million..lol

Agreed, and his fear of tackling started after he severely injured his shoulder. I get it, I'm getting a shoulder replaced and it ****ing hurts, so I can't imagine what an NFL CB goes through. But if that's the case, he should retire.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

You know, I really wanted to listen to JA's father, Landis. So I did, but less than 2 minutes into the interview he says: "maybe he missed a game or 2 but....."

Then he goes on to say that even had Jaire signed with the Packers, they would have just traded him. Then...."there was no signing bonus".

Give me a break

Step away Landis, your judgement is clouded.

Just for the record, I did listen to the whole interview and my opinion didn't change.....Landis would make a terrible lawyer, totally unbelievable and contradictory.

You must be logged in to see this image or video!

 

[gopkrs]

You know, relatives can say anything. That is not in the player's control. I have no desire to even watch it. Nor keep talking about Jaire. He's gone. I've turned the page. It will be interesting to see how he does though.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

You know, relatives can say anything. That is not in the player's control. I have no desire to even watch it. Nor keep talking about Jaire. He's gone. I've turned the page. It will be interesting to see how he does though.

I understand both of your points. However, for me, it is important for the Packer franchise that the correct narrative is out there. The last thing you want as a franchise is the idea of not being fair to players when it comes to contracts.

Too many times we have heard players like Jaire (his Dad) leave the franchise on what appears to be less than amicable terms and then said player(s) feel like they need to throw some parting shots. Not sure if that is to make themselves feel better or just to stir up the fan base.

As far as this opinion of Jaire's Dad and if it accurately represents his Son's experience and feelings, I guess that is up to each individual to decide. I can say one thing for certainty, my parents rarely, if ever, unembellished any facts/stories about their sons life, which I may have told them over the years.

 

[OldSchool101]

I 100% would bet my house on the fact that Gute/Ball offered him a contract that when the season was done would have paid him DOUBLE that amount if he just stayed healthy for the most part.

I was thinking similar. It sounds like our offer was heavily tied to per game pay, but yeah likely much more than $6mil top end on his current deal.

We see this on bigger contracts every other year where in effort to keep the cap straight we kick the can down the road, but it most often balloons and we can’t afford to retain the player. On this one though he had dual to trio strikes against him. He had a fiscal balloon getting ready to pop, he had critical level injury and sprinkle it with maybe some increased resistance because players feel like they aren’t being respected.

PS. I’m not sure what he was thinking making that video with $$ raining on him. He was living in JA JA land!

 

[milani]

Honestly I thought someone would offer him around a $10-15mil like
50% guaranteed

I think injury history made it harder and harder to bargain. No team wants to sign someone for big $$ with the likelihood he goes down and down right away. In that sense history is not on JA's side. One reason Brett Favre was still sought after at a ripe old age was that he just never missed a start until his very end. And teams went at him.

 

[Pugger]

I’m glad it was AFC.

WOW. $4Mil? Plus $2m incentives? That’s dirt cheap even for his situation

I think this speaks volumes if this was the best deal he could get. No wonder we couldn't find a buyer....

 

[Heyjoe4]

I think this speaks volumes if this was the best deal he could get. No wonder we couldn't find a buyer....

This really is a low-ball offer, even with JA's unreliability as a starter the last two seasons.

My guess is that he's been cleared to play by team physicians. That doesn't mean he's 100% healthy. Out of all his injuries, the shoulder injury concerns me the most. If his rotator cuff was damaged, it's gonna be very painful for him to play when he needs to get his arms up.

I'm guessing that once his career is over, he'll have his shoulder replaced. But shoulder replacement would take well over a year for recovery and likely end his career, and rotator cuff repair would be longer and also likely end his career. This may also explain his hesitancy to tackle, or at least an unwillingness to wrap up, arms extended. That would hurt, a lot.

So what the hell, take $4 mil, maybe $6 mil and give it a go. He's just too young, and when healthy, too good to walk away from football now.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Jaire was a horrible tackler. Football basics 101 and he got a big red F on tackling. Ow my cuticle tore off..give me my 6 million..lol

I think the reluctance to tackle is due to his injured shoulder. He almost certainly damaged the rotator cuff, and that makes raising the arms or even extending the arms (to wrap up for a tackle) very painful. Surgery to correct is unreliable and would likely end his career anyway.

So he'll play through pain I guess. But if I'm right, it's just a matter of time until he's back on IR. Yeah I think that shoulder injury did him in. but I'm no Dr, so take it FWIW.

 

[El Guapo]

Jaire was a horrible tackler. Football basics 101 and he got a big red F on tackling. Ow my cuticle tore off..give me my 6 million..lol

You need to go back and watch his first few seasons. He was a very willing tackler on the edge. Then he hurt his shoulder tackling, and that was essentially the start of all his problems. Then he tried to focus on being the best shut-down CB if he couldn't tackle.

Honestly, I don't know what else you want out of a guy that sacrificed his body and got burned for it. If you were a 24/25yr old with tons of potential but injured badly tackling, wouldn't you try to protect yourself to continue playing?

I don't fault Jaire, but I agree with you that it was time for us to part ways. I hope that he plays well for Baltimore, except in Week 17.

 

[Pugger]

This really is a low-ball offer, even with JA's unreliability as a starter the last two seasons.

My guess is that he's been cleared to play by team physicians. That doesn't mean he's 100% healthy. Out of all his injuries, the shoulder injury concerns me the most. If his rotator cuff was damaged, it's gonna be very painful for him to play when he needs to get his arms up.

I'm guessing that once his career is over, he'll have his shoulder replaced. But shoulder replacement would take well over a year for recovery and likely end his career, and rotator cuff repair would be longer and also likely end his career. This may also explain his hesitancy to tackle, or at least an unwillingness to wrap up, arms extended. That would hurt, a lot.

So what the hell, take $4 mil, maybe $6 mil and give it a go. He's just too young, and when healthy, too good to walk away from football now.

I suspect he was unpleasantly surprised by the offers out there. In the end he swallowed his pride took the Baltimore's paltry contract offer.

 

[OldSchool101]

You need to go back and watch his first few seasons. He was a very willing tackler on the edge. Then he hurt his shoulder tackling, and that was essentially the start of all his problems. Then he tried to focus on being the best shut-down CB if he couldn't tackle.

Honestly, I don't know what else you want out of a guy that sacrificed his body and got burned for it. If you were a 24/25yr old with tons of potential but injured badly tackling, wouldn't you try to protect yourself to continue playing?

I don't fault Jaire, but I agree with you that it was time for us to part ways. I hope that he plays well for Baltimore, except in Week 17.

I like the theme of these type games when we play a Packer departed.
It sets us up for some good football contests.

 

[Heyjoe4]

I suspect he was unpleasantly surprised by the offers out there. In the end he swallowed his pride took the Baltimore's paltry contract offer.

Agree. His agent should have had a better idea of his market value. Seems they were both expecting offers in the $15 mil range. Ouch.

JA's biggest weakness became his inability to tackle after the shoulder injury. I get it, those things hurt and keep a CB from extending his arms to wrap up, and always, the fear of reinjury. But the NFL has little room for fear in its players. Gotta wonder if this is just an inexpensive, one year gamble by the Ravens. We'll find out soon enough.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

I would love to see all contracts shift to a large chunk of the contract being paid via active games bonuses. Maybe something like 80% of the yearly salary divided by the number of games, being equal to what you get paid that week for actually suiting up and being on the active roster. If a player has a $17M contract ($1M/game) and he gets hurt, he only gets paid $200K for that week. The "unpaid" $800K goes towards the following years cap. Maybe put a max of $15-20M/team to roll over into the next season.

A pay system like that keeps the players getting paychecks, but doesn't overcompensate them for not playing. It also gives a team that gets hit hard by key injuries, a bigger purse to spend the following year.

 

[OldSchool101]

I would love to see all contracts shift to a large chunk of the contract being paid via active games bonuses. Maybe something like 80% of the yearly salary divided by the number of games, being equal to what you get paid that week for actually suiting up and being on the active roster. If a player has a $17M contract ($1M/game) and he gets hurt, he only gets paid $200K for that week. The "unpaid" $800K goes towards the following years cap. Maybe put a max of $15-20M/team to roll over into the next season.

A pay system like that keeps the players getting paychecks, but doesn't overcompensate them for not playing. It also gives a team that gets hit hard by key injuries, a bigger purse to spend the following year.

I recall saying something similar like years ago, so it wasn’t J’aire. Might’ve been discussing David Bak. There is no way in heck we should be paying a players full salary (or anywhere close) if they aren’t suiting up.

Another idea would be if a player misses more than 3 consecutive games. As an example they miss 5 games. The following 5 weeks they get 50% of their game pay average. This takes care of many concussion protocols because most players are back within a few weeks.

In the event a player misses 51% of the available games they get a reduction of 50% in their yearly money.

 

[Thirteen Below]

JA will sign the contract, take the bag of money and claim he is injured again.

I know you're kidding, but he doesn't dare. This is basically a "prove it" contract.

I'm sure he was planning on making a lot more money by the end of his career than he has so far, and at his age he's only going to have one more shot at a jackpot contract. He needs to have a stellar season with the Ravens in order to prove to some team next year that he's worth double-digit millions; he's likely to be more highly motivated this season than he's ever been in his life.

I don't know if this is strue or not, but his father is saying that Green Bay only offered him 4.3, with incentives possibly brining it up to $6m total - basically the same amount as Baltimore offered, but with a less favorable incentive structure. If that's true, I'm surprised, but perhaps it's a measure of just how thoroughly fed up Gute actually was with his availability issues. I'm not surprised Jaire would turn that down, because I'm sure he was expecting to get some offers much larger than that.

His dad also said that he believes Green Bay would have traded him before the start of the season, which I think is probably a reasonable guess.

 

[Heyjoe4]

I would love to see all contracts shift to a large chunk of the contract being paid via active games bonuses. Maybe something like 80% of the yearly salary divided by the number of games, being equal to what you get paid that week for actually suiting up and being on the active roster. If a player has a $17M contract ($1M/game) and he gets hurt, he only gets paid $200K for that week. The "unpaid" $800K goes towards the following years cap. Maybe put a max of $15-20M/team to roll over into the next season.

A pay system like that keeps the players getting paychecks, but doesn't overcompensate them for not playing. It also gives a team that gets hit hard by key injuries, a bigger purse to spend the following year.

Yeah one thing is for certain, major injuries can truly drag a team down. I like the idea of clawing back some of that comp, or basing comp, on some type of performance metric, as you note. That would require some negotiation but it's certainly doable. The players will say, "It's a tough game, get used to it" while the owners, and fans will say, "Why are we paying a guy who is chronically injured?"

Even though I like the idea, it probably won't happen. The CBA would need to be changed, I think. I wonder if this hasn't come up in the past. They should be able to find a middle ground so situations like JA's and Bahk's have a release valve for chronic, lt injuries.

 

[Pugger]

I know you're kidding, but he doesn't dare. This is basically a "prove it" contract.

I'm sure he was planning on making a lot more money by the end of his career than he has so far, and at his age he's only going to have one more shot at a jackpot contract. He needs to have a stellar season with the Ravens in order to prove to some team next year that he's worth double-digit millions; he's likely to be more highly motivated this season than he's ever been in his life.

I don't know if this is strue or not, but his father is saying that Green Bay only offered him 4.3, with incentives possibly brining it up to $6m total - basically the same amount as Baltimore offered, but with a less favorable incentive structure. If that's true, I'm surprised, but perhaps it's a measure of just how thoroughly fed up Gute actually was with his availability issues. I'm not surprised Jaire would turn that down, because I'm sure he was expecting to get some offers much larger than that.

His dad also said that he believes Green Bay would have traded him before the start of the season, which I think is probably a reasonable guess.

Did we not try to trade him? If not that would be surprising to say the least.

 

[Pugger]

Yeah one thing is for certain, major injuries can truly drag a team down. I like the idea of clawing back some of that comp, or basing comp, on some type of performance metric, as you note. That would require some negotiation but it's certainly doable. The players will say, "It's a tough game, get used to it" while the owners, and fans will say, "Why are we paying a guy who is chronically injured?"

Even though I like the idea, it probably won't happen. The CBA would need to be changed, I think. I wonder if this hasn't come up in the past. They should be able to find a middle ground so situations like JA's and Bahk's have a release valve for chronic, lt injuries.

Yes, I can't imagine the players' union ever agreeing to anything like that. I don't know if I'd characterize Bak's situation to JA. Bak's injury was basically career ending.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Yes, I can't imagine the players' union ever agreeing to anything like that. I don't know if I'd characterize Bak's situation to JA. Bak's injury was basically career ending.

Yeah that's true, Bakh's career, even after many attempts to save it, was done the day he first got injured. That hasn't happened to JA. I do think his shoulder injury has made him an unwilling tackler. That means he'll need a lot of safety help, and he'll have to play like a shutdown corner, something he could do at one point in. his career.

I do wish him well. He was a bit strange, but in his heyday, a truly great CB. Maybe he can reprise that. That's fine, as long as it's not against the Packers!

 

[OldSchool101]

I know you're kidding, but he doesn't dare. This is basically a "prove it" contract.

I'm sure he was planning on making a lot more money by the end of his career than he has so far, and at his age he's only going to have one more shot at a jackpot contract. He needs to have a stellar season with the Ravens in order to prove to some team next year that he's worth double-digit millions; he's likely to be more highly motivated this season than he's ever been in his life.

I don't know if this is strue or not, but his father is saying that Green Bay only offered him 4.3, with incentives possibly brining it up to $6m total - basically the same amount as Baltimore offered, but with a less favorable incentive structure. If that's true, I'm surprised, but perhaps it's a measure of just how thoroughly fed up Gute actually was with his availability issues. I'm not surprised Jaire would turn that down, because I'm sure he was expecting to get some offers much larger than that.

His dad also said that he believes Green Bay would have traded him before the start of the season, which I think is probably a reasonable guess.

True. I can see where at some threshold in negotiations the bigger picture is he becomes a distraction. I’ll say this part again and double down on it. If Detroit regresses even the slightest bit, GB will be vying for the Division Big Dog. Obviously health and all that have to work out, but that’s level playing ground because it’s the same situation for each team.

I really like our depth at just about every position except for CB. I’m an optimistic guy, but we have to be cognizant of the fact we’re leaning unproven in CB depth. However imo Gute already is aware of that and he has a contingency plan. I suspect if it looks like we are struggling at CB or someone is going to miss some time, we’ll bring aboard a veteran before deadline. No hurries as the $$$ works to our favor as the games pass.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Yes, I can't imagine the players' union ever agreeing to anything like that. I don't know if I'd characterize Bak's situation to JA. Bak's injury was basically career ending.

Sadly, I agree and was going to say the same thing.

Let's face it, the NFL has basically become a Monopoly that prints its own money. The Owners know it, as do the players and their union rep, the NFLPA. When a star player goes down with an injury, the teams income stream isn't really effected. Therefore, the NFLPA would argue that players should continue to be paid full salaries. I guess the owners could argue that if a star player gets hurt and the teams performance level suffers, ticket sales might drop and/or the team is suddenly eliminated from the playoffs. However, I doubt owners and the NFLPA want to get into that kind of public feud.

The guaranteed money in football continues to rise for everyone involved and I don't see it stopping, unless the income stream suddenly gets drastically reduced.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

I know you're kidding, but he doesn't dare. This is basically a "prove it" contract.

I'm sure he was planning on making a lot more money by the end of his career than he has so far, and at his age he's only going to have one more shot at a jackpot contract. He needs to have a stellar season with the Ravens in order to prove to some team next year that he's worth double-digit millions; he's likely to be more highly motivated this season than he's ever been in his life.

I don't know if this is strue or not, but his father is saying that Green Bay only offered him 4.3, with incentives possibly brining it up to $6m total - basically the same amount as Baltimore offered, but with a less favorable incentive structure. If that's true, I'm surprised, but perhaps it's a measure of just how thoroughly fed up Gute actually was with his availability issues. I'm not surprised Jaire would turn that down, because I'm sure he was expecting to get some offers much larger than that.

His dad also said that he believes Green Bay would have traded him before the start of the season, which I think is probably a reasonable guess.

I see what you are saying, but...... With the amount of money that many players are making, even as rookies, they can be set up for life after just 4 or so years in the NFL. If money was their main motivation for being there and that motivation has already been satisfied, things like injuries, life style, desire to continue, etc. can snowball and remove the desire to play in the NFL. Why risk life changing injuries if you already are financially set-up for life?

I would love to see some historical stats on players walking away from the NFL, while apparently still leaving money on the table. My guess, it would show that before money became so skewed, players were willing to stick it out longer, just to make sure they had money to retire on.

 

[OldSchool101]

I see what you are saying, but...... With the amount of money that many players are making, even as rookies, they can be set up for life after just 4 or so years in the NFL. If money was their main motivation for being there and that motivation has already been satisfied, things like injuries, life style, desire to continue, etc. can snowball and remove the desire to play in the NFL. Why risk life changing injuries if you already are financially set-up for life?

I would love to see some historical stats on players walking away from the NFL, while apparently still leaving money on the table. My guess, it would show that before money became so skewed, players were willing to stick it out longer, just to make sure they had money to retire on.

So the immediate thought that popped into my head if they went the route of discounting a teams cap and player salary more aggressively for time missed. These players and agents would just push more yearly to offset it.

If they did amend the injury situation by lessening the cap impact in teams mixed with decreasing a players money, there would also need to be a ceiling on the yearly maximum rate of inflation for contracts. Imo Thats where the crap would hit the fan with players representatives. As their income is tied to players directly.

At minimum the teams should be able to appeal situations like Jaires on an individual basis. Maybe being awarded a couple of appeals every couple of seasons based on playoff merit etc.