This article refers specifically to OTC’s final projection for the 2024 NFL Draft’s compensatory picks. For details on the basics and methodology of projecting compensatory picks in general, please reference this article. Note that this projection does not include compensatory picks awarded via 2020 Resolution JC-2A.

To understand how this projection is generated for each team, please reference the compensatory pick cancellation charts here.

The Projection

This draft, I am projecting that there will be 36 regular compensatory picks generated from the typical netting process. However, each year only exactly 32 picks are awarded. Therefore, the picks that rank 33rd and lower are not awarded, although the official release will typically acknowledge presence of any comp picks in excess of 32, as this list does with strikethrough text.

Over the past three years, the official release has happened just before the start of free agency. Last year it was the Thursday before on March 9, the Monday before two years ago on March 15, and the Thursday before again three years ago on March 10. There have also been multiple times when the official release happens on the Friday before the NFL Scouting Combine. This year, that is scheduled for February 27-March 4, so the Friday before would be February 23. The range of the release could be anywhere after the Super Bowl (February 12) but before the start of free agency (March 13).

Cutoff Projections

The most difficult part of projecting the compensatory picks is accurately identifying where the cutoffs lie between each rounds, and where the cutoff for qualifying as a Compensatory Free Agent (CFA) is. That is because the larger subset of the leaguewide players of which the smaller subset of compensatory free agents are judged against is never the same size, and requires accurately tracking roster transactions for thousands of players–a feat that will always have a margin of error.

The key number that determines these cutoffs is, per Appendix V, Paragraph 2(a) of the CBA, is the number of “all other League players on rosters at the conclusion of the regular season”. This draft, I will continue to use the average of the estimated number of leaguewide players in previous sets of compensatory picks, dating back to 2014. This average comes out to 1,965, and is the number that is used for the above projection. If that number is close to accurate, here is where the cutoffs would lie:

Players On The Cutoff Bubbles

While it is my hope that my projection of where the cutoffs lie is correct, there is enough of a margin of error that the players that are close to them may fall on the opposite side of where I have them projected. In most cases, if I’m wrong it means that the team in question will still get a comp pick for that player, but that it may be in a round higher or lower. But in a few cases (those are bolded), it could change cancellations, possibly taking away or greatly devaluing a projected comp pick—or possibly adding or greatly upgrading a comp pick.

3rd/4th

None

4th/5th

• Projected 4th/5th cutoff: #196
• David Onyemata (New Orleans): #197
• Allen Lazard (Green Bay): #198

5th/6th

• Baker Mayfield (Los Angeles Rams): #286
• TJ Edwards (Minnesota): #289
• Projected 5th/6th cutoff: #295
• Charles Omenihu (San Francisco): #299
• Arden Key (Jacksonville): #310

6th/7th

• Rakeem Nuñez-Roches (Tampa Bay): #491
• Projected 6th/7th cutoff: #492
• Sean Murphy-Bunting (Tampa Bay): #506
• Dean Lowry (Green Bay): #509
• Samaje Perine (Cincinnati): #514

7th/Qualifying

None

Qualifying/Valuation Questions

Perhaps the most compelling story among compensatory free agents this season has been the play of Baker Mayfield, who because the starting quarterback for the Bucs, and took them all the way to a playoff win in the wild card. He signed for a base salary of $4 million for this season, and that alone would have placed his contract in the 6th round. But there were also $4.5 million in incentives that he could earn. I estimate that he earned $2.85 million of those incentives, as illustrated in the tweet before, and the total of $6.85 million he should have earned in 2023 should push his contract into the 5th round.

There was also an instance of a CFA being traded, and in this case, a player went back to the team that he left in free agency: after leaving Kansas City for the New York Jets, Mecole Hardman was traded back to the Chiefs in the middle of the season. This should cause Hardman to cancel himself out in the Chiefs’ cancellation chart, and leave them with one fewer comp pick than anticipated–in this case a 5th rounder for JuJu Smith-Schuster leaving for Foxboro.

Charles Omenihu will also be a player that could affect the Chiefs’ projected comp pick, as well as one for the 49ers. His six game suspension for violation of the personal conduct policy regarding domestic violence limited the snaps he could play, and has placed his contract on the 5th/6th round bubble. This projection has his contract in the 6th round, but if it falls in the 5th instead, San Francisco will get a 5th for his departure instead of a 6th for Jimmie Ward going to Houston, while Kansas City will still get a 5th but it will be a few picks lower, with the compensated player being Smith-Schuster instead of Andrew Wylie.

Tampa Bay also has a possibility to upgrade the 7th round pick it’s projected to get to a 6th rounder. If both Rakeem Nuñez-Roches and Sean Murphy-Bunting get their contracts valued in the 6th round, that will give the Bucs a 6th rounder for Murphy-Bunting’s departure, as the signing of Greg Gaines would instead cancel the departure of Mike Edwards to Kansas City.

Finally, there could be a bit of drama on who receives the Mr. Irrelevant pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. It should be a nailbiter between either the Jets, for Dan Feeney leaving for Chicago, or the Jaguars, for Chris Manhertz leaving for Denver. According to OTC’s compensatory formula page, the two players are within a point or two of each other. It is unclear how the compensatory formula resolves ties–of which Feeney and Manhertz could end up in–and after every official release is made, I regularly have to clean up the order of a few comp picks due to the resolution of tiebreakers. Most of the time this is trivial, as it just moves picks one spot up or down. But in the case of the 32nd vs. 33rd comp pick, it could mean the difference between getting a comp pick or not. OTC’s formula has the Jets coming on top with Feeney, but it could be wrong and say the Jaguars have it with Manhertz instead.