The Green Bay Packers have, by and large, had a very successful offseason. It takes a special kind of franchise to lose players to free agency and still count itself lucky. Ted Thompson appears to have made the Packers that kind of special this spring and summer as it appears the team is going to be among the NFL's leaders when it comes to getting Compensatory Picks next year. While this is hardly a stat most football fans are paying close attention to, those picks can mean the difference between making the Super Bowl and making the playoffs if they are used right.
Green Bay should be getting four comp picks with at least one of them being a third round selection.
As the folks at Over The Cap points out, it's hard to know exactly how many picks any one team gets or where those picks will go. The formula the league uses to figure such things out is kept very secret. Those same folks at OTC have been paying close enough attention over the years that they have managed to make pretty accurate projections. There are a grand total of 32 compensatory picks handed out by the NFL each year. With that in mind, the Packers getting four of them is a pretty good deal.
Packers trading up?
The first comp pick Green Bay is expected to land is a third round pick. This is because the team lost guard T.J.
Lang to the Detroit Lions over the offseason. While some might poo-poo a third round pick as not being one that is going to bring a ton of impact, it should be pointed out, both of the rookie running backs that are expected to compete for playing time this year were drafted in the fourth round.
Another lineman who moved along this spring was JC Tretter.
It's expected the departure of the center will bring the franchise a fifth rounder after the Cleveland Browns signed Tretter. Tight end Jared Cook is expected to get the Packers a sixth-round pick, since he departed for the Oakland Raiders and running back Eddie Lacy's leaving for Seattle should also bring in a sixth round compensatory pick.
Packers decoding the formula
If that explanation doesn't also point out just how convoluted the formula is then nothing will. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense that a tight end who figured to play sparingly, if at all this year will bring back the same pick as a running back who would have been the odds-on favorite to start, had he been healthy. So did the Packers hurt themselves when it came to comp picks? Not really. According to the current projections, their signing of tight end Martellus Bennett wiped out the loss of Micah Hyde. It's a safe bet the Green Bay Packers feel the former Packer is worth more than a development project.