Packers Compensatory Picks To Be Announced This Week

Later this week the NFL will announce which teams will receive compensatory draft picks for players lost in free agency during 2014. When you see the actual trades for players (for example, the Saints recently received a 5th round pick for OL Ben Grubbs), the idea of receiving two 6th round picks for the free agent departures of C Evan Dietrich-Smith and WR James Jones, plus a 7th round pick for OT Marshall Newhouse (which is laughable that he's worth anything in trade) is a pretty sweet deal. Especially when it was time to move on from some of them (Newhouse especially) anyway.

It also helps that GM Ted Thompson has found some of his best players with compensatory picks.

#Packers take Iowa DT Mike Daniels with 4th-round compensatory pick. Still on the clock.
— Tom Oates (@TomOatesWSJ) April 28, 2012

While he doesn't always select players as good as Daniels, or former compensatory pick LG Josh Sitton (the book is still open on his 2014 compensatory selections of TE Richard Rodgers and WR Jared Abbrederis) it sure doesn't hurt to give him more picks to work with. I'm not enough of a draft nut to know which sleeper picks might be available in the late 6th and 7th rounds, but odds are that at least one of them will turn into a useful player.

The Packers Were Awarded Four Extra Compensatory Draft Picks

Among #Packers' past compensatory picks: Marco Rivera, Tyrone Williams, @Hasselbeck, Aaron Brooks, Scott Wells, @MNewhouse74, @jsitton71.
— Jason Wilde (@jasonjwilde) March 26, 2012

It is possible to actually determine the formula by which the NFL awards compensatory draft picks, but it's as exciting as trying to figure out the salary cap. Because other teams signed Cullen Jenkins, Daryn Colledge, Brandon Jackson, Jason Spitz, and Korey Hall in free agency last summer, and the Green Bay Packers signed no one from another team, they were awarded the maximum amount of compensatory draft picks: four (two in the fourth round, and two in the seventh round). The picks come at the end of their respective rounds.

There's not a lot to get excited about here. The picks can't be traded, and while the Packers have sometimes gotten a good player with them, a lot of them have been misses. But it will provide them with a lot of extra quality depth in training camp, and if even one of them works out, it's a win.