oldhawkfan":3rq1ki86 said:
The comp pick algorithm is a somewhat complicated one and I don’t think anyone really knows how it works outside of some computer nerd hired by the NFL working out of a windowless office in NY. At least that’s how I imagine it.
It's actually not complicated at all really. The only real black box is the APY thresholds that determine which round of picks. And even that's fairly easy to forecast.
The formula itself is simple:
Picks = Lost qualified UFAs - Signed OUTSIDE qualified UFAs (resigning own qualified UFAs don't factor).
Picks are hard capped at 4 per team.
A maximum of 32 total comp picks are awarded for the entire league.
That above formula will get you at least in the ballpark. There are some ancillary rules that apply for the 7th round comp picks. But usually they don't really matter. For purposes of "do we get a comp pick?", the only rule you really need to know is the above.
A qualified UFA? What's that? Simply put, it's a player whose contract expired or was voided after the previous season. The expired part is easy to understand (Earl's contract expired, Sherman's however was terminated). Voided is a different animal (e.g. Darrelle Revis' contract with New England was structured as a series of one year contracts with a club option to void the contract after a season and prior to the start of the new league year).
Ok, so if one doesn't want to really get their nerd groove on to fully understand this, they just want to know the basics as far as it pertains to free agency. What do they need to know?
It's also fairly simple. First things first, is we'll want to look at who we lose. As we go through the UFA signing period this year, it's important to assign the true cost for adding players. This year, we've lost 6 qualified UFAs:
Thomas
Coleman
Hundley
Stephen
Davis
Sweezy.
That's 6 picks right there.
We added Myers. So now we have 5.
Seems like a lot. But remember, we have to replace all these guys. Some of those could be qualified UFAs which further reduce the number. Currently we can still add one for no pick cost (remember we can only have 4 picks max).
We already added Paxton Lynch to replace Hundley. But we still have 5 picks. Now we get into the difference between street UFA and qualified UFA. Street UFAs are players who were cut by other teams, or weren't under contract in the previous season. These guys don't factor in comp picks. And further, they can be signed at any time, even in between the end of the previous season and the beginning of the league year.
Last year we added Barkevious Mingo, Shamar Stephen, Ed Dickson, DJ Fluker and Jaron Brown as qualified UFAs. At the time, I really only liked the Mingo and Fluker moves. Because all of these guys cancelled comp picks coming back to us. When I look at UFA signings, I consider them a 'trade'. The three guys (Dickson/Brown and Stephen) to me felt like just generic depth guys. But we in essence traded a 4th round and 5th round pick for them. In addition to paying them more that every other team felt they were worth.
This year, we have a forecasted 3rd and 4th round comp pick coming back. We also have two 6s and a 7th. Every qualified UFA we sign reduces that number. So in your mind, you should be thinking that we are actually trading picks for qualfied guys we sign.
oldhawkfan":3rq1ki86 said:
Compensatory picks are essentially based on FA lost calculated using contract value vs FA signings. If a teams net losses are greater than their net gains in $ figures they probably get compensatory picks.
Net losses for contract value lost doesn't factor at all in receiving picks. It only factors in what level of pick. And net losses in contracts still don't factor. It's done at an individual contract level. If I lose Graham for 9m and Richardson for 8m, if I add Thing1 for 3m and Thing2 for 2m, I get zero picks. Net contract values don't apply.
oldhawkfan":3rq1ki86 said:
Fast forward to this offeasons FA circus and it looks like Earl might net a good pick. As far as I can tell, he is currently a top 5 signing in terms of dollar figures. Coleman also looks to be a pick generator. It’s a long off season with plenty of time to lose more FA and sign new ones. We won’t know for sure how it shakes out until months from now. It looks and feels like we might see some picks gained for 2020 but who knows with the free agent feeding frenzy. Anyone seen any way too early 2020 comp pick predictors?
Reference this:
https://overthecap.com/compensatory-dra ... ion-chart/
Right now, Seattle has a nice collection of comp picks. All of them expected to be before round 7. The exact round or position won't be known until next year. But forecasting of the benchmarks is pretty accurate as we've had a lot of offseasons to reverse engineer the formula now.
For a team that like to pick in volume, and likes to trade down to add day three picks, it puzzles me why comp picks were generally disregarded last year. This year being no different, we're expecting to move back a good 15-25 spots in order to add generally less picks and value than we could have had if we simply chose to not torpedo our comp picks with UFA backup options last year.
So as the UFA period progresses, we need to understand that signing qualified guys going forward is more appropriate to think of them as a 'trade and contract extension' equivalent. Every outside qualified UFA we sign is a mini version of the Percy Harvin deal.
EDIT: And, we just signed MIke Iupati. So we are now down to 4 comp picks. It appears we're going to copy the 2018 strategy to trade draft picks for low end roster depth. The question we should be asking, is Iupati considerably better than a generically available cap casualty after the draft? He's a name player. But his game is more like a garden variety journey player. Not even at Breno Giacomini's level of play when we plucked him off a practice squad.
