With free agency now going at a snail’s pace, I thought this would be a good time to give an update as to where the 2016 compensatory picks now stand. As always, if you’re wondering about a certain player, check in with 2016’s cancellation chart to see if another player has cancelled him out.
Before I proceed, I thought I would spread the news of a couple new developments.
With those adjustments in place, a few players in the 2016 projections had their round devalued. Denver receives the biggest piece of bad news, as the compensatory pick for Julius Thomas now falls from the last 3rd to the first 4th. Thomas may still net Denver a 3rd in the end, but they may need him to play a high percentage of the offensive snaps and/or make the Pro Bowl in order to get it. Cleveland and Green Bay also each have had a 4th demoted to a 5th, respectively for Buster Skrine and Davon House. Vince Wilfork is also squarely on the 5th/6th round bubble for New England, and could go either way in the end.
The current table of the 2016 compensatory picks may be found on the right of this post.
It’s important to emphasize that Carolina didn’t necessarily do anything “wrong” by signing Trusnik. Dave Gettleman may have legitimately decided that acquiring a well-regarded special teams player right now is better for the team than waiting for a 3rd round rookie to join the Panthers more than a year from now.
On the opposite end from Carolina is Detroit. I had suggested that the Lions should be mindful of what UFAs they sign before what is now May 12, so as to not risk losing the 97th overall pick for losing Ndamukong Suh. Detroit has made it clear that they’ve well exceeded those expectations. They are one of only three teams who have yet to sign a UFA this year (Green Bay and Pittsburgh are the other two). They are also tied with Denver for the highest lost/gained difference at 6. At this point, the only harm signing a low-level UFA could do is possibly sacrifice a very low 7th for Garrett Reynolds that may not be awarded anyway.*
Meanwhile, the imbalance of who holds the comp picks continues. Just seven teams (Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, New England, San Francisco, and Seattle) hold 25 of the 32 picks (more than 78%). As another interesting fact, currently there are three teams (Kansas City, Cincinnati and Carolina) that are eligible for a compensatory pick but it lands beyond the 32 pick limit.
At this point, it will be a while before I provide the next 2016 compensatory pick update. The next one should come by May 12, when no more UFAs will be added to the list after that date. Then, we’ll have to wait until the cutdown to 53 at the end of the preseason in late August/early September to look for many more changes.
*UPDATE (2:15 PM ET): As I was in the process of submitting this post, Detroit signed their first UFA this offseason in Josh Wilson. Although some of the fun facts listed here are no longer true, I feel the main point of the Lions taking exceptional care to protect their compensatory pick for Ndamukong Suh still stands.
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