If you’ve been hoping to finish up on your seven-round mock draft, you can now officially do that, because we know where all 32 teams will be picking during April’s NFL Draft.
The final piece of the puzzle was released on Friday when the NFL awarded 32 compensatory selections to 16 teams. Although the exact formula the league uses to award picks hasn’t been released, we do know that it basically comes down to this: a team that loses more or better compensatory free agents than it acquires in the previous year is eligible to receive compensatory draft picks.
Using that “formula,” the big winners this year were the Bengals, Broncos, Chiefs and Browns, who all received four extra picks. The Dolphins (3), Rams (2) and Seahawks (2) were the only other teams to received multiple compensatory picks.
The highest awarded pick went to the Dolphins, who were given the 97th overall selection in the draft for losing several free agents last year, including Lamar Miller and Olivier Vernon.
The lowest two picks handed out went to the Broncos, who were given the final two picks of this year’s draft, which means that unless Denver trades their pick away, they’ll be selecting Mr. Irrelevant this year.
Speaking of trades, for the first time ever, teams will actually be allowed to trade compensatory picks in 2017. Two teams have already taken advantage of that: The Patriots picked up the Browns’ third-round compensatory selection (103rd overall pick) in the Jamie Collins’ trade, while the Titans get the Rams’ third-round compensatory selection (100th overall) as part of the 2016 trade that moved Los Angeles up to the No. 1 spot in last year’s draft.
Bill Belichick will probably love having that extra pick, and that’s mainly because he’s done well with compensatory picks in the past.
The NFL just announced which teams will get compensatory picks? Pssshhh... Like THOSE ever matter. pic.twitter.com/X7eFxIpfKd
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) February 24, 2017
Here’s the full list of picks that were awarded for this year’s draft.
Full NFL compensatory selections for 2017: pic.twitter.com/tVTLDIcu30
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) February 24, 2017