Evaluation Of The 2019 Compensatory Picks Projection

As expected, the 2019 compensatory draft picks were released today. As always, upon seeing the official release it’s proper to judge how my prediction did against it. This year went very well overall but there were still a few incorrect round cutoffs that need to be cleaned up.

Highlighted in dark green, I got 28 of 32 comp picks correct with the correct player and the correct round. In addition, I got 5 of the 7 comp picks that missed the 32-pick limit correct, for a total of 33 out of 39.

Highlighted in light green, there were two comp picks that while I did identify the correct player and round, I had projected that they would miss the 32 pick limit. Due to misses elsewhere, these two comp picks were in fact awarded to Washington and Arizona. Note that I did accurately project that these two comp picks were the first two picks in line to be awarded if other projected comp picks were not awarded.

Highlighted in yellow, there were 2 comp picks that I had the correct player for, but was off by one round. I again overestimated the cutoffs for all rounds, and it knocked these 2 comp picks down a round. The 4th rounder to the Giants I had projected for Justin Pugh was in fact a 5th, while Danny Amendola was valued as a 6th rounder instead of a 5th, thus causing him to be canceled out by Adrian Clayborn, opening up a different 6th for Dion Lewis to New England.

Highlighted in blue, there was one pick I missed that I anticipated that I would very likely miss. This was the convoluted contract Mike Wallace signed with Philadelphia. As I explained in my projection, Eagles GM Howie Roseman used a variety of techniques to try to get Wallace to not qualify as a compensatory free agent. Had he succeeded, Philadelphia would have received two 6th rounders instead of one. However, the NFL Management Council instead counted one of either his $1 million OATSB (other amount treated as signing bonus), or his ludicrously easy to achieve $585,000 weight bonus of staying under 250 pounds. I have high confidence that both bonuses were not counted, as if they were, Wallace’s value would have been high enough to make the 32 pick limit and thus award Baltimore a 7th rounder, which they did not get.

Highlighted in red, there was one pick I missed without reasonable anticipation that I may have missed it. This was another cutoff miss, that of Devon Kennard being valued as a 6th rounder as a 5th. This caused Kennard to be canceled out by signing Kareem Martin (whose loss awarded the Cardinals a respective 6th), instead opening up a 7th for Geno Smith that was well below the 32 pick limit.

Since observers of the Giants may be confused as to how they only got a 5th round comp pick, instead of the 4th and 5th I thought they’d get, it may be helpful if I visually demonstrated what I got wrong.

This is the cancellation chart that I thought the Giants had created:

Since I did not think any CFA that the Giants lost would be valued as a 6th rounder, I thought Kennard would instead cancel out a 7th rounder instead of jeopardizing higher valued comp picks.

But this is how the NFL Management Council judged the Giants’ cancellation chart:

Pugh falling from a 4th to a 5th is straightfoward, but because Kennard also fell to a 6th, this mandated that he had to be cancelled out by Martin. With that loss now cancelled out, all that was left was the Giants’ lowest valued 7th rounder in Smith, which was well below the 32 pick limit.

Speaking of Smith, on a brighter note I did correctly project that he would qualify, as well as being accurate on the cutoff between other 7th rounders and non-qualifying compensatory free agents, a cutoff that I was more worried that I would miss. I was also correct that all of the strategic cuts of CFAs done by teams (such as the Cardinals cutting Sam Bradford, the Cowboys cutting Deonte Thompson, and the Giants cutting Patrick Omameh) would reward those teams with extra compensatory picks.