The Ravens traded cornerback Jaire Alexander to the Eagles on Nov. 1, and he stepped away from football on Nov. 12 without playing a game for his new team. The Eagles retain his rights, so if he ever decides to return, it will be with Philadelphia unless the team releases him or trades him.
Alexander, 29, posted about his mental health struggles on social media on Wednesday and made it sound as if his football career is over.
“As much as I loved Baltimore, I didn’t love the position I was in,” Alexander wrote. “I had a bunch of internal battles with myself. I didn’t have that confidence in my abilities I once did. At corner, you need ultimate confidence in your abilities, and I felt it slipping away. It was at this moment I contemplated if I was making the right decision for my career. What helped me get through these times was not only God & my family, but I had some really cool teammates who made it fun to be there. I felt as if I let the organization down. My family and friends would drive up to see me, and I wasn’t even playing in the games. I never questioned God, but why me? All this while having a smile on my face. Football is a true gladiator sport, and once the confidence has gone, it’s time to hang it up. Thank you Flock Nation for embracing me. Thank you EDC for believing in me & thank you for the unlimited therapy sessions I had to encounter to help me with my time there. I am so grateful for the experience.”
Alexander made two Pro Bowls in eight seasons. He played seven seasons in Green Bay before the Packers released him last summer, and he appeared in two games with the Ravens last season.
Packers Clips
The Eagles’ move to trade for receiver Dontayvion Wicks has only added to the speculation that the club is gearing up to move on from A.J. Brown, despite General Manager Howie Roseman’s insistence to the contrary.
Either way, Philadelphia has built up more depth in its receivers room with Wicks, who is a player the team has wanted to add.
“You see his skill set,” Roseman said on Tuesday, via Dave Spadaro of the team’s website. “He is a physical, explosive player at the top of routes.
“He can play inside or out, so he is a guy we had our eye on.”
Plus, the Eagles have members of their offensive staff who know him well, as new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion and run game coordinator/tight ends coach Ryan Mahaffey were both with Wicks in Green Bay. Mahaffey was the Packers’ receivers coach for the last two seasons.
“You see that Green Bay has had tremendous depth at the receiver position, he played well in our game [four catches for 38 yards on eight targets] and we had advanced scouted him and had looked at him through the years and, obviously, a really productive guy,” Roseman said. “But we’re also in a situation where you feel like you have inside knowledge about what the player is like to live with. Obviously, Ryan had been with him as his position coach, Sean had been with him on the offensive staff. You take away the risk of bringing in someone you don’t know when you have people who know him and who have worked with him.”
“He’s able to separate at the top of the route, and I think his toughness really shows up on tape,” head coach Nick Sirianni added. “Again, when you can create that type of separation, we obviously get really excited about that, really excited to add him to that room.”
In his 46 career games for the Packers, Wicks caught 108 passes for 1,328 yards with 11 touchdowns. In 2025, he had 30 receptions for 332 yards with two TDs.
Wide receiver Chris Brazzell is wrapping up the pre-draft visit window with a busy week.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Brazzell is set to visit with the Packers, Commanders and 49ers ahead of next week’s draft. Brazzell also spent time with the Panthers, Colts and Cardinals last week.
Brazzell spent two years at Tulane before wrapping up his time in college with two seasons at Tennessee. He had 74 catches over his first three seasons and then posted 62 catches for 1,017 yards and nine touchdowns with the Volunteers last season.
That production has put him in play as an early-round pick and he’ll find out just where he’ll be starting his NFL career in a little over a week.
The Eagles have made a trade involving a wide receiver, but it does not involve A.J. Brown.
According to multiple reports, they will send a 2026 fifth-round pick and 2027 sixth-round pick to the Packers for Dontayvion Wicks. Wicks has also agreed to a one-year, $12.5 million extension with his new team.
Wicks was a 2023 fifth-round pick, so he was headed into the final year of his rookie deal before the extension. He had 30 catches for 332 yards and two touchdowns last season and had 108 catches for 1,328 yards and 11 touchdowns over his three seasons in Green Bay.
Brown’s future with the Eagles has been cloudy all offseason and the move to add another wideout is unlikely to dim speculation that the team will move him ahead of the regular season. The cap implications for the move are less onerous for the Eagles if they wait until after June 1 to make such a deal.
DeVonta Smith, Hollywood Brown, Elijah Moore, Johnny Wilson, Darius Cooper, and Britain Covey are also on the receiver depth chart in Philadelphia.
Having won the CFP National Championship with Indiana in January, running back Kaelon Black has a busy pre-draft schedule.
Black has several teams on his list for pre-draft, top 30 visits, including the Jets, Broncos, Panthers, Colts, Texans, Dolphins, Packers, Vikings, Patriots, and Raiders, a source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT.
He may also meet with the Bengals.
Black played under head coach Curt Cignetti at James Madison for two years before transferring to follow Cignetti to Indiana in 2024.
He rushed for 251 yards for Indiana in 2024 before becoming one of the Hoosiers’ two 1,000-yard backs in 2025, finishing the season with 1,040 yards and 10 touchdowns. He also caught four passes for 36 yards.
The decision of quarterback Kirk Cousins to sign with the Raiders removes from the board a potential backup option for the Rams. And it potentially kicks the door a little wider for a return by Jimmy Garoppolo.
Via Nate Atkins of The Athletic, Garoppolo is currently “weighing a few options” as he plans his next move.
He doesn’t need to rush; since entering the league in 2014, Garoppolo has made $156 million. His days as a starter are likely over, but there’s still a need for him.
The Cardinals were interested. After talks hit a snag, Arizona pivoted to Gardner Minshew. It’s still possible, in theory, that Garoppolo could supplant Jacoby Brissett there.
The Packers also need a veteran backup. They were interested in Cousins. Perhaps they could also be interested in Garoppolo.
He also could wait. Injuries happen. Urgency could lead to better financial offers. Now 34, he doesn’t need to rush into the wrong spot. He can wait for the right one, whenever and wherever it may emerge.
Earlier this week, Kirk Cousins was supposedly taking his time. Just like that, he’s doing a deal with the Raiders.
He had options, obviously. The Rams were interested in him as the backup to Matthew Stafford, if Jimmy Garoppolo doesn’t return. The Packers were interested, too.
His decision to sign with the Raiders means that no clear-cut starting opportunity was available. The Cardinals apparently never came calling. The Steelers could have been a possibility, if Aaron Rodgers doesn’t play in 2026.
But the Raiders wanted a veteran. Coach Klint Kubiak said so on Tuesday. And Cousins becomes the bridge quarterback, turning his $10 million guarantee for 2026 into $20 million, when factoring in next year’s $10 million guaranteed roster bonus.
Cousins also may have had an offer from CBS. The Matt Ryan chair is open, and Cousins was excellent in his playoff assignment there. (Kyle Long was, too.)
Still, Cousins wasn’t going to make $20 million at CBS this year. TV can wait, and it will be there when he’s done. Even if CBS may not have a seat when Cousins is ready, he likely has the confidence that someone will make room for him at the appropriate time.
The real question is the extent to which Cousins will play in 2026. But at least he knows going in that his new team will most likely be picking a quarterback in Round 1. Unlike two years ago, when the Falcons blindsided him by picking Michael Penix Jr. only weeks after giving Cousins $100 million in guarantees.
There’s one way to keep 49ers fans from taking over SoFi Stadium during a “road” game against the Rams.
Move it to Melbourne.
In a joint interview with Packers coach Matt LaFleur, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said he knows “for a fact” that the Rams pushed to have their home game against the 49ers be the game that was sent from La La Land to the Land Down Under.
“I’m pretty sure the Rams lobbied for that game,” LaFleur said when the subject of the Australia game came up.
“I know for a fact they did,” Shanahan said. “That’s what’s so bothersome.”
Shanahan joked (we think) that he wants the 49ers’ “home” game in Mexico to have the Rams as the visiting team.
Still, Shanahan understands why the Rams would want to avoid seeing a home game against the 49ers become a home game for the 49ers. (The Chargers were surely thinking about that last year, when a potential Chiefs takeover of SoFi Stadium was moved to Brazil.)
“That would suck to have to do silent cadence and to have our home game at their stadium,” Shanahan said. “So I get their ambitions, but they were rewarded that. So I’m just hoping we can get our request, too. I’d love them to come to Mexico.”
Having both ends of a home-and-home series played on foreign soil would be unprecedented, to say the least. And it would be an interesting tweak, if it ever happens.
For now, we’ll all settle for the interesting reality that the Rams found a way to tweak the 49ers by successfully persuading the NFL to export what would have been another 49ers home game.
The NFL Players Association no longer publishes the full results of its player survey, but some of the results get reported — including that Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was downgraded by his players in 2025.
LaFleur’s grade went from an A-minus in 2024 to a B-minus in 2025, and the union survey indicated that some players think LaFleur doesn’t treat them with enough respect. LaFleur said he’s going to take that information to heart.
“I don’t feel that way, but unfortunately some guys did,” LaFleur said, via ESPN. “That tells me I’ve got to do a better job of communicating. It goes back to the relationship piece. I think it’s so critical. We always talk about connected teams are powerful teams, and we have to grow that connection. Certainly that’s been a topic of conversation within our building of -- how do we get these guys a little closer? Because the more they know each other, I think the more they’re going to battle for one another.”
Amid some talk that LaFleur could be on the hot seat, he got a contract extension this offseason. He said he was never worried about his contract, but he does acknowledge the Packers haven’t reached his own high expectations during his time as head coach. He’s hoping better communication with his players can change that.
Jerry Jones is at it again.
The Cowboys owner and G.M. has a history of trying to negotiate directly with players. Last year, his habit helped contribute to the collapse of his relationship with linebacker Micah Parsons.
This year, Jerry is trying to get franchise-tagged receiver George Pickens to go it alone.
Coincidentally, or not, Pickens and Parsons are represented by the same agent — David Mulugheta of Athletes First.
Said Jones on Tuesday, via Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, regarding Pickens: “If he worked without an agent, he’d save a lot of money . . . with me.”
Pickens surely won’t be falling for that one. Jerry knows that it’s easier to squeeze someone who doesn’t negotiate contracts for a living into doing a bad deal. And even if Pickens wouldn’t have to pay Mulugheta’s fee, Mulugheta will get enough to more than justify his cut.
Look at what Parsons ultimately secured from the Packers: $46.5 million per year. Does anyone think the Cowboys ever would have paid him that much? Jones seemed to be intent on kicking the can through the fifth year of Parsons’s contract (at less than $25 million) before perhaps playing the franchise-tag game for a year or maybe two.
Instead, Parsons got $120 million fully guaranteed over the first three years of his contract with the Packers.
To date, the NFL Players Association has not taken action against Jones’s efforts to undermine the relationships between his players and their agents. Jones does it in part because the fine, under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, is minimal. And Jones has made it clear that he’ll happily pay those fines.
Of course he will. If/when he manages to get a player to do a deal without the help of an agent, Jerry would save enough money to pay that fine hundreds of times over.
Maybe that’s something the NFLPA should look to change in the next CBA. With Jones apparently the only owner inclined to circumvent NFLPA-certified agents, there would be little pushback from the league at large to adding a zero or two to the fine for doing so.
