NFL Draft: Broncos Expected to Receive Four Compensatory Picks

The Denver Broncos had a very interesting offseason in 2014, losing eight key free agents to other teams and making some big splashes of their own. While losing big name free agents is tough, it’s not all bad when in the next season, they have the opportunity to receive compensatory picks in the NFL Draft.

The Broncos are cashing in on that opportunity very soon, and are currently projected to receive the maximum four compensatory picks in this year’s draft, bringing their current total of six to a whopping 10 picks.

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To explain fully what the formula is for receiving compensatory picks, you need to reference this post from Over the Cap. Essentially, the $140 million salary cap determines what yearly salaries will be the cutoff numbers for picks in each round. For example, the highest paid free agent to switch teams this past year was Denver Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib from the New England Patriots, so New England will likely receive a third round draft pick as compensation.

Factor in also what players that same team signed as UFAs and you have what makes for an extremely complicated formula that ultimately has yielded the Broncos seemingly a minimum of four draft picks — a 4th (Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie), two 6th (Knowshon Moreno, Shaun Phillips), and a 7th (Robert Ayers).

With the salary cap projected to increase, this piece of information from the article I linked above sheds some light on T.J. Ward’s situation as it pertains to a compensatory pick for the Broncos, and Denver has a chance of swapping one of their sixth rounders for another fourth rounder.

“Most of the questions center around whether players will qualify at all for the formula. I currently foresee far fewer questions on which rounds players will fall in, although it is likely I will be off on some of them.

The only

One serious question mark that I see right now focuses on TJ Ward, going from Cleveland to Denver for an APY of $5.625 million. Since I have projected the cutoff between the fourth and fifth round to be about $5.57 million, I project that TJ Ward will count as a 4th rounder against Denver. However, should the salary cap be greater than about $142 million, that would subsequently raise that cutoff, and possibly reduce Ward to a 5th rounder. But on the other hand, since Ward was named to the Pro Bowl it appears likely that he will end up as a 4th anyway. The reason this matters for Denver is because if Ward is a 5th instead of a 4th, he will cancel out a lower-valued player and give the Broncos a higher-valued pick (explained below). (In short, us Broncos fans should be rooting for a high salary cap in 2015, not only for this reason but so they have extra space to retain their key pending free agents.)”

In essence, the combination of an increased salary cap and T.J. Ward’s value should swap out one of those later round picks for a fourth rounder for Denver, which would leave them with an optimal situation of draft picks that looks like this:

1st round (own)- 28th
2nd round (own)
3rd round (own)
4th round (Compensatory)
4th round (Compensatory)
5th round (Bears)
5th round (own)
6th round (own)
6th round (Compensatory)
7th round (Compensatory)

It’s not exactly not optimal, but if the Ward situation falls through and the Broncos’ pick isn’t upgraded, their draft situation will still look like this:

1st round (own)- 28th
2nd round (own)
3rd round (own)
4th round (Compensatory)
5th round (Bears)
5th round (own)
6th round (own)
6th round (Compensatory)
6th round (Compensatory)
7th round (Compensatory)

We don’t know the exact order of all the picks after the first round for the Broncos, as they had the same record as some other playoff teams so they will shift around in the other rounds but for the most part, those are the two scenarios we are looking at for draft weekend. 10 selections in total, and important to note that the Broncos cannot trade compensatory picks.

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