WhoDat!656

Projecting The 2019 Compensatory Picks

https://saintsreport.com/threads/sai...y-pick.400382/

ScottF

oh boy...here we go
Can we at least enjoy the post-season before everyone starts complaining about how Roger hates us and it's not fair that we never get comp picks?

turbo_dog

Shocker

AsylumGuido

The thought that Goodell, or any other single individual, arbitrarily awards compensatory picks is incorrect. It is all based upon a formula that considers factors such as "salary, playing time and postseason honors". See the following:

As the NFL explains, compensatory picks are awarded to teams that lose more or better compensatory free agents than they acquire. The number of picks a team can receive equals the net loss of compensatory free agents, up to a maximum of four. Compensatory free agents are determined by a secret formula based on salary, playing time and postseason honors. Not every free agent lost or signed is covered by the formula.

Although the formula has never been revealed, by studying the compensatory picks that have been awarded since they began in 1994, I’ve determined that the primary factor in the value of the picks awarded is the average annual value of the contract the player signed with his new team, with an adjustment for playing time and a smaller adjustment for postseason honors.

And ...

In order to qualify for the comp equation, a player must have been a true Unrestricted Free Agent whose contract had expired or was voided after the previous season (i.e., he cannot have been released by his old team); he must sign during the UFA signing period (which ended July 27 last year); if he signs after June 1[*], he must have been tendered a June 1 qualifying offer by his old team; his compensatory value or contract value must be above a specific minimum amount; and he cannot have been permanently released by his new team before a certain point in the season (which seems to be after Week 10) or, possibly, before getting a certain amount of playing time, unless he was claimed off waivers by another team.

Basically put, the Saints consistently fare better than most franchises in their decisions on what free agents to keep, let go, or acquire. Not being awarded compensatory picks is a good thing.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

BakoSaint

Compensatory picks are a system that some teams have learned to game, and we are not one of those teams. The formula is very clear and many independent websites are able to forecast the picks very accurately. The big key is that when you add a free agent whose contract with another team ran out, it costs you, but if you trade for a player (ie Marcus Peters, Brandon Cooks, etc) or sign a player who was technically cut (Ndamakong Suh, etc) it costs you nothing. If you get a player via trade or cut, and then the following year their contract runs out and they leave you by normal contract expiration free agency, then adding them counts nothing against you, but losing them does count for you. There are also many technicalities with how option years and abilities to void deals affect whether losing a player counts, so you have to write contracts carefully and not just throw in 'cap wizard' years that mean all your players will leave via being cut.

There is a chance we could get compensation picks in 2020. The Teddy Bridgewater trade was a classic one to possibly get a compensation pick. We traded for him, which cost nothing in the compensation system. But his contract will run out and he may leave. Unfortunately he did not impress much in his start, so we are unlikely to hit the lottery where he leaves on a 15-20 million a year deal and we get a max compensation pick if we dont sign a free agent to match.

ScottF

all true ^^
the very big BUT is, "why play the game?"
do you want Davis and Coleman this season, or a third round pick in '19?
easy call

SmashMouth

So none to Teddy, even with the bicycle kick move?

homerj07

What if we hold on to Teddy?

BakoSaint

I think the basic idea is that they count how many non-cut free agents you added from other teams versus how many non-cut free agents lost to other teams. I think they have to be qualifying somehow, like losing a very bottom of the barrel free agent like say if we lost Devante Harris might not count. Then if we lost more than we gained, we get picks. Which picks we get depend on which extra players we lost don't match up with a player we gained. If we lost more big money players than we gained, we get higher picks, if we are even on big money players and our extra losses are small money players, we get late picks.

I don't think we have to play this game every year but its smart to factor it in. New England plays this game extensively, so if we never play it any year, we are basically saying New England is stupid, which their number of Super Bowl appearances and wins does not seem to support.

Lets say we want a veteran pass rusher, Terelle Suggs is cut, and Julius Peppers is a free agent, and lets pretend they are equally good for our scheme. If we get Suggs instead of Peppers, maybe that gets us a draft pick too, and we have to factor that in. Also lets say we lose 6 free agents in 2019 and 6 in 2020. If we acquire 6 free agents both years too, we get nothing. If we acquire 4 one year, and 8 the other, we may get 2 picks the other year, and they don't take away picks or roll over the deficit the year we get more.

All we have to do to get some compensation picks is line up one year where we replace some free agent signings with trades of late round picks for players, or signing players who were cut due to high salary years packed onto the end of their contract, or we let some short term rental players go. It seems reasonable to arrange some year where this happens.

If we hold on to Teddy, he has no affect on the compensatory pick system. We did not acquire him from a team that was trying to resign him, we acquired him by trade, and we would not lose him to another team, he would continue with us. Since we acquired him via trade, ie not via an expired contract from a team that got outbid, we cannot lose anything in compensation picks, we can only gain compensation picks if we get outbid for his continued services and that outbidding leaves us losing more free agents than we gained.

neugey

Someday when I am over 90 years, old one of my grandkids will come into the nursing home to tell me the Saints finally got the first compensatory pick in franchise history and they'll also have to remind me what it is again.