Packers: Forget about compensatory picks in 2020 NFL Draft

Brian Gutekunst’s aggressive approach to free agency last offseason paid off for the Green Bay Packers. But it almost certainly won’t lead to any compensatory draft picks this year.

Za’Darius and Preston Smith established themselves as one of the top pass-rushing tandems in football, combining for 25.5 sacks in the regular season. Their production and leadership helped the Packers improve on defense from the prior year.

Adrian Amos made a significant difference at safety, starting all 16 games and making two interceptions in his first season with the Packers. Right guard Billy Turner also started every game.

Gutekunst hit a home run in free agency last year. It helped quickly turn the Packers into contenders, bouncing back from a 6-9-1 finish in 2018 to a 13-3 regular season record in 2019, in a season they reached the NFC Championship Game.

Here’s the downside of spending big in free agency: compensatory draft picks. The NFL awards a number of additional draft picks to teams who lost value in free agency the year prior.

While Ted Thompson was the GM, it was usually a question of how many picks the Packers would receive, safe in the knowledge they’d always get at least one. The reason for that was he’d rarely sign free agents, and the Packers would be awarded compensatory picks the following year due to losing players in free agency.

When he did make a big signing, like bringing in Julius Peppers in 2014, it often didn’t count towards the compensatory formula. For example, Peppers was released by the Chicago Bears so didn’t impact any compensatory picks.

Over The Cap has a very useful tool called the Compensatory Draft Pick Cancellation Chart. They compare the unrestricted free agents each team has lost to the players they added, while also comparing the value of the contracts.

Last offseason, the Packers lost four unrestricted free agents: Bashaud Breeland, Jake Ryan, Clay Matthews and Randall Cobb. But each loss was canceled out by the four additions made: Za’Darius Smith, Preston Smith, Adrian Amos and Billy Turner. And Green Bay paid more money for the players coming in than other teams did to sign former Packers.

Gone are the days of the Packers being awarded compensatory draft picks, at least for now.

While they are useful additional mid-round picks, the Packers will have no regrets considering the huge impact these four free agents had in 2019. It would be hard to find similar production with the same number of compensatory draft picks.