NFL Errs In Awarding Three Compensatory Draft Picks

News has broke that the NFL made an error in the placement of three of the 32 compensatory picks for the 2015 NFL Draft.  The errors are as follows:

  1. Denver’s 6th was demoted to a 7th.
  2. Pittsburgh’s 7th was promoted to a 6th.
  3. Carolina’s 6th was promoted to a 5th.

This is tremendously good news to hear at this point, because in evaluating the initial reports to my program, I correctly identified that something was very wrong with the Denver and Pittsburgh picks, and upon further review saw something fishy with the Carolina pick as well.  Let’s take each of these errors one at a time:

  1. For Denver, it made no sense that Emmanuel Sanders (a 5th round value) should cancel out anyone but Wesley Woodyard (a high 6th round value). That notion was strengthened when, after working on adding an adjustment for playing time, it suggested that Knowshon Moreno should be valued as a 7th instead of my initial projection of a 6th.  News of this error not only confirmed my suspicion that Sanders should have cancelled out Woodyard, but it also confirms that I am on the right track with the playing time adjustment that I’ll explain in Part 2 of the evaluation.
  2. Similarly, for Pittsburgh I couldn’t fathom how Ziggy Hood (a clear 6th round value) was getting cancelled out, when there was no player with comparable value to do so.  Did he somehow get demoted to a 7th, or did LeGarrette Blount get promoted to a 6th due to his unusual transition from the Patriots to the Steelers back to the Patriots?  Thankfully, the truth is neither, and the pick the Steelers did get is indeed for Hood, as projected.
  3. The Carolina error is more nuanced, as when I was applying the playing time adjustment I wasn’t sure who their second comp pick was going to be for.  Initially I thought Captain Munnerlyn, but the adjustment was telling me that he should have been valued higher than the spot suggested due to his playing of almost all the defensive snaps. So perhaps the pick was instead for Ted Ginn or Brandon LaFell.  This news confirms that the pick is indeed for Munnerlyn.  The fact that he was valued so high to push into the 5th round is mildly surprising at the moment, but it’s also not completely farfetched, either.  I’ll look at my adjustment further to see if Munnerlyn fits into where he should be.

I will have a more detailed post later that will further explain what could be going on behind the scenes of a compensatory formula, but I thought it would be prudent to address these anomalies promptly.  Also keep in mind that the rookie pools on OTC’s draft page are still not fully accurate as our program for the compensatory picks is still incorrect.  Once I have good confidence in my adjustments, I will make those changes accordingly.