If the Kansas City Chiefs go all day on Monday without signing any free agents, they stand the opportunity to gain a fourth round compensatory pick in 2020.
“Just another couple days. Just another couple days.” If the Kansas City Chiefs can only make it through Tuesday, May 7 before signing a free agent, our friends at Over the Cap are projecting the team will pick up a 4th round compensatory selection in the 2020 NFL Draft. They just need to wait a couple more days.
On Wednesday, May 8, NFL teams can sign any free agent on the market they want without fear of losing their compensatory picks. Comp picks are given to teams as draft selections at the end of rounds 3-7, depending on how big the player loss is from the year before. It’s designed to help replenish teams who suffer major free agent losses, and NFL franchises have long begun to strategize around not only who they sign but when in order to skirt the comp pick deadline and earn as many draft assets as they can.
If you’re wondering how good players like Ndamukong Suh or Corey Liuget or Jamie Collins or Eric Berry are still free agents, you can in most instances point to the May 8 deadline. Anyone signed before May 8 is lumped in together and calculated among a team’s free agent wins and losses.
Looking at the Chiefs offseason, the team has taken a few serious hits with the loss of Mitch Morse to the Buffalo Bills as the biggest of all. If the Chiefs had not signed any significant players on the open market, they would have received a third round compensatory pick in 2020 to help make up for losing Morse to the Bills. Instead, Brett Veach landed Tyrann Mathieu on a three-year deal and they lost that pick. Anyone would make the same exchange.
From there, the Chiefs are also being credited with a fourth round compensatory selection for the loss of cornerback Steven Nelson to the Pittsburgh Steelers. While the Chiefs have signed defensive end Alex Okafor, cornerback Bashaud Breeland and linebacker Damien Wilson, none match Nelson’s average annual value of $8.5 million, which is why the Chiefs are still given credit here.
For now, Brett Veach has retained all of his draft picks for next season and now looks like he will have an extra pick at the end of round 4. That’s a nice day 3 pick for Veach to use or trade to move around the draft board. Players taken at the end of the fourth round in 2019 include tight end Foster Moreau, offensive lineman Michael Jordan, defensive end John Cominsky and edge rusher Shareef Miller.