Bengals compensatory picks questions begin after NFL’s announcement

The Cincinnati Bengals received two compensatory picks this year for the 2024 NFL draft, the first time they have received extra picks from the comp picks process since 2021.

But the two sixth-round selections awarded by the NFL could be in error, according to one expert on such matters.

Nick Korte of Over The Cap, the go-to name on comp picks, says the league’s valuation of contracts and values of players lost to other teams might’ve cost the Bengals as high as a third-round compensatory selection.

According to Korte, Jessie Bates should have been valued as a third-rounder and not a fourth. As a fourth, Cincinnati’s losing him was canceled out by the team’s signing of Orlando Brown Jr. in free agency:

If Jessie Bates’s contract was valued as a 3rd, and Orlando Brown Jr.’s was valued as a 4th, this is what the Bengals’ cancellation chart would have looked like: a 3rd and a 6th, instead of two 6ths. pic.twitter.com/ggdirDLfnP

— Nick Korte (@nickkorte) March 8, 2024

Translation: There’s a scenario where, if Bates gets valued as a third-rounder, the Bengals earn third-round and sixth-round comp picks instead of two sixes. It should go without saying, but the difference in value between a third and sixth-rounder is massive — from the late 90s to early 200s difference.

This is worth keeping in mind, if nothing else, because there have been errors in the comp pick process in the recent past. In 2015, an error caused a revision of three comp picks. In 2021, a team was shorted a pick that was later corrected.

That doesn’t mean there’s an error here, especially when much of this process is secretive-feeling. But given the value of the pick differential pointed out here, it’s certainly a point worth raising.