Compensatory picks are one of the mysteries of the NFL where most know little about them (and thus spurring my effort to demystify the process). But the one aspect that average NFL fans have known about compensatory picks for years is that they can’t be traded.
That basic rule, however, appears to have been discarded, as reported via Adam Schefter this morning.
It’s unclear at this time why the NFL decided to now allow compensatory picks to be traded. The simplest answer may be to encourage more trading while the draft is underway. The event has become a ratings grabber for television, with much glitz added to the infrastructure, so increasing the potential for excitement via increased trades may be in play.
But I’ve also been thinking about some of the ramifications of allowing trades:
However, the final results of the compensatory picks can be determined well before then. The moment would come when all adjustments for playing time and postseason honors are finalized. By the letter of the CBA, that would happen the instant the Super Bowl MVP is named on the first Sunday of February. However, since the odds of the Super Bowl MVP being a player that’s implicated in the compensatory picks are infinitesimally small, and because postseason honors in general are a very small weight in the compensatory formula, in practice we’ll know the results after the end of the regular season in the first week of January.
Still, pushing the official release to early February would be quite appreciated for general managers. This is because they would have the entirety of the free agency and trade period to use those picks if they choose, and that’s important since the grand majority of free agency action takes place in the first few days. It will be interesting to see if GMs that focus on accumulating compensatory picks will make this argument in the future.
I would be curious to see if any executives or owners pick up on these efforts when the official 2016 release comes out, and whether that will turn into desire to make it harder for teams to game the system to the extent that a small handful of teams are collecting the grand majority of compensatory picks.
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