Denver Broncos: Why John Elway’s trades were the best offseason moves
By Andrew Wade
Trades don’t impact the compensatory formula
Compensation picks are handed out yearly to NFL teams based on their free agency signings and losses from the previous offseason with some teams receiving picks as high as the third round (if you want more information this specific, go here). Anytime you can get an extra day two pick, that is huge. And now with the ability to utilize these compensatory picks in trade discussions, they become even more valuable.
With as much cap room as the Broncos had this offseason, it could be expected that the following offseason, Elway’s team was likely to not receive many (if any) compensatory picks. That’s because typically teams like to use that cap room on free agents, and the more high-priced free agents that are signed, the more likely you are to cancel out any possible losses from your team (such as Chris Harris or Derek Wolfe).
Why trades matter in this situation is because they don’t count for or against the NFL’s compensatory formula. So instead of Casey’s $15 million per year contract and Bouye’s $13.5 million counting heavily against this formula, they don’t, at all.
That being said, the signings of Glasgow and Gordon will almost assuredly cancel out the losses of Harris and Wolfe, but the trades at least give Denver a fighting chance at potentially grabbing compensatory selections in the future.