The Green Bay Packers released cornerback Jaire Alexander late in the afternoon on June 9. Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta wouldn’t have needed long to figure out what he might be worth in Baltimore.

Alexander, a two-time All-Pro who in 2022 became the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback, played just seven games last season, and none after Thanksgiving. Injuries limited him to 361 defensive snaps, the second fewest of his career. DeCosta could’ve scoured Alexander’s 2024 highlights, lowlights and everything in between and still made it home in time for dinner.

Clearly, the Ravens liked what Alexander offered. And clearly Alexander liked what the Ravens offered as well. On Wednesday, he signed a one-year deal worth up to $6 million, reuniting with former Louisville teammate Lamar Jackson and bolstering an already Super Bowl-caliber roster in Baltimore.

“We’re excited to have him,” coach John Harbaugh said. “I know he wanted to be here, and we wanted him here. So, for it to work out the way it did, it made Lamar happy. I think it made everybody happy. It’s just an opportunity to become a better team, in that sense, today, so we’re really excited about it.”

What are the Ravens getting, exactly? The Baltimore Banner reviewed every coverage snap Alexander played last year in Green Bay. Here are five takeaways.

1. He can play both sides of the field

Alexander is primarily an outside corner. Since 2020, he’s never played more than 33 snaps in the slot in a season. Given the Ravens’ needs out wide, where Nate Wiggins was the team’s only reliable, full-time option last year, Alexander’s role isn’t expected to change in Baltimore.

What could change, however, is where he lines up. Over the past two seasons, Alexander played regularly on both sides of the Packers’ secondary, getting 305 snaps as an outside left cornerback and 526 as an outside right cornerback, according to Pro Football Focus.

In Baltimore, he’ll likely return to a right-side-heavy alignment. Wiggins played almost exclusively on the left side as a rookie, and defensive coordinator Zach Orr prefers to play sides in coverage. Still, Alexander’s ambidexterity could be an asset; he was an All-Pro as an outside left corner in 2020 and again as an outside right corner in 2022.

“There is definitely a time when you can definitely travel [with a receiver] and put a guy on a specific guy and help guys out,” Orr said in December. “But … we’ve got confidence in our guys. We feel like, when it’s critical situations and we need to take a guy away, we have enough in our repertoire to take guys away and make sure that they don’t wreck the game.“

2. He’s an in-your-face player

One of the most impressive reps of Alexander’s 2024 season came in Week 6. Midway through the second quarter of an eventual blowout win over the Arizona Cardinals, Alexander lined up in press coverage against rookie wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. At the snap, Alexander delivered a two-handed jam to Harrison, staggering him briefly and knocking him back a yard. The first-round pick, facing outside leverage from Alexander, ran a short in-breaking route, but Alexander closed on the ball as it arrived, forcing an incompletion and a collision that knocked Harrison out of the game.

Alexander does not have overwhelming size (5 feet 10) or strength (196 pounds). But he plays with fearlessness in press coverage. He sets up for some of his jams almost in a wide receiver’s stance, coiled like a rattlesnake, ready to strike as soon as the ball’s snapped. Sometimes he’ll even fake a jam as a changeup.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, during his All-Pro season in 2022, Alexander played press coverage on 30.5% of his defensive snaps with a receiver lined up on his side. Quarterbacks targeted him just 21 times, and he allowed 10 completions for 129 yards and a touchdown, with one interception. The Ravens will give him similar opportunities. Harbaugh’s defenses have always embraced press coverage with physical, aggressive corners. But few have packed a punch quite like Alexander’s.

3. He has a good feel for zone coverage

The Packers played one of the NFL’s highest rates of zone coverage in 2024, which made good use of Alexander’s awareness in space. According to Sports Info Solutions, when playing the league’s most common zone schemes last season (Cover 2, Cover 3, Cover 4 and Cover 6), he was targeted just nine times, allowing five catches for 73 yards and a touchdown, with two interceptions. Alexander’s 0.6 yards allowed per zone coverage snap would’ve ranked first in the Ravens’ cornerback room.

Alexander’s skill set as a zone defender is well rounded. He can break on the ball quickly when playing in off coverage, but he rarely commits before he has to. He has the spatial awareness to split the difference against receivers trying to “high-low” him with overload concepts. And he’s smart enough not only to look for work as routes develop downfield but also to look for the ball when it’s in the air, a recurring struggle last year for former Ravens cornerback Brandon Stephens.

The Ravens played zone on over 70% of their snaps last season, slightly above the league average, but with the talent in their secondary, they could lean into more blitz-heavy, man-to-man looks in obvious passing downs.

4. He’s (likely) no longer a shutdown cornerback

Alexander had just one matchup against a star receiver last season. It did not go well.

In a season-opening loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, Alexander was targeted six times in coverage against wide receiver A.J. Brown and allowed four catches for 108 yards and a touchdown, according to PFF. He slipped as he broke on one route that led to a long catch-and-run. He got outmuscled on two other catches. And, after biting on a double move, he couldn’t catch up to Brown in the open field to deny a 67-yard touchdown.

Alexander had a handful of impressive reps over his seven games last season, from staying attached to slippery Houston Texans wide receivers Tank Dell and Stefon Diggs to running stride for stride with uber-athletic Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. to matching the physicality of big-bodied Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr.

But, when Alexander lost early in his reps, he sometimes struggled to recover athletically. Jaguars wide receiver Calvin Ridley dusted him on one red-zone fade route but didn’t get the target. Colts rookie wide receiver Adonai Mitchell created almost 5 yards of separation on a curl route but dropped an easy catch.

Alexander has dealt with knee, shoulder, quadriceps and groin injuries over the past two seasons, and they’ve affected more than just his coverage ability. In 2023, another injury-plagued year, he missed six tackles and had a 13.6% missed-tackle rate, according to PFF, his worst such marks since his second NFL season. Last season, Alexander had four missed tackles in almost 200 fewer defensive snaps and finished with a career-high 20% missed-tackle rate, one of the worst on Green Bay’s defense.

5. His injuries could strike at any time

Alexander’s last season in Green Bay was a stop-and-start adventure. He played almost every defensive snap through the first three weeks, then missed the next two games with quad and groin injuries. He ramped up to 100% playing time in Week 8, then missed Week 9 with a knee injury. Alexander returned in Week 10 for 10 defensive snaps, then was shut down for the rest of the season as he recovered from what he said was a PCL tear in his knee.

Alexander appeared to suffer the injury late in the Packers’ Week 8 win over the Jaguars. On his second-to-last snap of the game, he broke up a red-zone jump ball, boxing out the receiver and nearly coming down with an interception. One play later, on another throw to the end zone, Alexander swiveled his hips, prepared to leap for another jump ball, then appeared to feel something go in his right knee. He hopped off the field on one leg in obvious discomfort.

The sequence crystallized the Jaire Alexander experience at age 28, during what should be his physical prime: a high-level cornerback play and an innocuous-looking, season-altering misstep, less than a minute apart.

“They’re highly talented guys that have had to unfortunately deal with some injury woes,” Harbaugh said of Alexander and cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, another newcomer who’s struggled with injuries in recent seasons. “And, obviously, that’s the upside for us, that we want to get those guys healthy and rolling.”