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Trying to explain the compensation pick formula and cancellation structure is probably the most convoluted thing the NFL has to offer. You think option bonuses are confusing? Compensation picks take on an entirely different life form that frankly puts the intricacies of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement to shame. If you want a deep dive full explainer, Over the Cap has you covered, but I’m going to simplify a few things here for our purposes in looking at how Green Bay will likely navigate the next month as we head into free agency.
The quickest cliff notes of how the compensation formula structure works as possible will be attempted here. A player counts as a CFA (compensatory free agent, i.e. someone who counts in the formulas) if they are an unrestricted free agent and sign a contract prior to the first Monday after the NFL Draft. Players signed after this point are not factored into the comp pick formula. Restricted free agents (like Darian Kinnard) and exclusive-rights free agents (like Bo Melton) are not counted either. If a player is released, often termed “cap casualty” by the type of folks who write about this stuff, they are not counted either. If a player’s contract voids, they are counted as an unrestricted free agent in the overwhelming majority of cases, and thus qualify for the comp pick formula. The highest comp pick you can earn is a 3rd rounder, all the way down to 7th rounders, and the most comp picks you can ever pick up in a single year is four. If you come out with a net of five CFAs lost, too bad, so sad, you get four picks.
Got that? That’s the easy part. Now onto the Packers situation. Green Bay is entering this off-season with nine unrestricted free agents. Trevon Diggs, Quay Walker, Malik Willis, Rasheed Walker, Kingsley Enagbare, Sean Rhyan, Nick Niemann, and John FitzPatrick. Trevon Diggs fails the “cut” rule. The Packers released him; he is not eligible as a CFA. Every other one of their free agents passes this test. The next test is when they sign. To qualify as a CFA, the player must sign a contract prior to the Monday after the NFL Draft. Obviously, this is unknown at this time, but I think it is a fair bet that at least everyone but Niemann and FitzPatrick will sign before then. FitzPatrick is unlikely to sign for some time, perhaps at all, after tearing his Achilles tendon late in the season. Niemann signed his contract in March of last year, and so qualified from a timing perspective, though with this type of special-team only players, it’s difficult to say how long that maintains. The other six: the Walkers, Willis, Doubs, Enagbare, and Rhyan are likely to sign prior to the draft, and thus should pass that test. The final test to qualify as a CFA is that you need to actually have a combination of average annual salary and playing time qualifiers to meet. While compensation picks have not been awarded yet as of writing (this will occur in a couple of weeks), the current projected last compensation pick in the upcoming draft is projected to go to Green Bay for Eric Wilson. Wilson received a contract total of $2.6M for 2025. Wilson racked up a lot of playing time for his contract and potentially pushed himself above other players on slightly larger contracts. For the purposes of 2027 pick calculations here, we’ll assume that any player making over $2.75M at least carries the ability to be a CFA.
Before we go into pick cancellations, we have to set a baseline for contracts that Green Bay CFAs could earn. Both Ian Rappaport and Jordan Schultz have reported that there is an expectation across the league that Malik Willis will receive a contract with an average annual value in excess of $30M. This would qualify Willis for a third-round compensation pick. Rasheed Walker is currently projected to receive a contract similar to that of Dan Moore, which would be in the neighborhood of $21M. Walker is currently the top-ranked free agent offensive tackle, and with scarcity at the position and many cap space-heavy teams needing offensive line help, Walker could surpass Moore, who earned the Steelers a third-round pick. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll assume Walker earns Green Bay a third. After Walker, it gets more complicated. The next highest AAV is likely to come from Romeo Doubs, who ranks sixth amongst receivers on our consensus free agent ranking board. One of those, George Pickens, will be franchise tagged, and another, Mike Evans, isn’t really competing with Doubs as he is an aged veteran. That leaves just Alec Pierce, Jajuan Jennings, and Rashid Shaheed. Acme Packing Company’s Tyler Brooke reported today in a video for his channel Best Availablethat Pierce is seen around the league as a lock to stay in Indianapolis. That means for a team looking for an X-receiver, Doubs will probably be #1 on their board when actual free agency rolls around, and that may push his market up. His floor seems to be the Khalil Shakir contract, which is about $13M AAV, but once you reach free agency, you can usually add a few million to that floor. If we assume Doubs signs for $16-$17M, that creates an unknown situation. No one signed in that exact range last year, but several defensive backs signed for just north of $17M and earned fourth-round comp picks. Just for the example here, we’ll assume Doubs nets a fourth. Then there’s Quay Walker, who is a living, breathing starting off-ball linebacker, which seems to get you about $13-15M once you reach free agency, almost regardless of how good you actually are. Maybe someone thinks they can fix him and pay him more, but we’ll assume, for this example, he lands there and would net the Packers a fifth.
Well, that is your four, except it’s not entirely. Obviously, if Green Bay retains any of them, which is unlikely, they wouldn’t count, so let’s run through the remaining ones just in case. This EDGE market is quite deep in depth, and that may push Kingsley Enagbare’s number down, especially when factoring in that it’s also a solid draft class at the position. Third EDGE types are typically in the $5-7M range, which is on the edge of sixth/seventh round pick. Sean Rhyan is an interesting case as he’s projected to get close to the CFA qualification number by most, but I frankly don’t buy that. Teams are desperate for semi-competent offensive linemen, and even shaky ones who hit free agency tend to get in the mid-to-upper seven figures, putting him in a similar position to Enagbare. So basically Green Bay would be looking at two thirds, a fourth, a fifth, with two sixths/sevenths in the bag that they can’t use.
Except they sort of can use them, even if they don’t get draft picks for them. And that’s where cancellation comes in. The cancellation process is done by round tiering, which makes it a bit of a mess to try and calculate ahead of time, so we’re just going to have to follow some very general rules. If you sign a CFA off another team, they will cancel out the player you lost. So if Green Bay signs a player for, say, $13M AAV, they would cancel out Quay Walker’s comp pick. Then, because Green Bay lost more than four players, it works down to the next one (either Enagbare or Rhyan in this example) and Green Bay would thus be awarded a sixth/seventh for one of Enagbare or Rhyan rather than a fifth for Walker. However, if a player they signed was tiered in the sixth/seventh range with Enagbare or Rhyan, they would be the ones cancelled out, even though Green Bay was not going to actually receive a comp pick for them because of the maximum of four rule.
Now, once we start doing some off-season projections on this, we can narrow down the options. I wrote earlier this week about how the center market is pretty bad this spring, and thus, it might necessitate retaining Sean Rhyan. If Green Bay does that, of course, Rhyan doesn’t factor into CFA calculations at all. Then Green Bay will likely only be able to sign one CFA in that sixth/seventh tier before creating a bit of a problem. If they were to sign any other CFA, regardless of how little they paid them (so long as they were still CFA qualifying), they would lose the Quay Walker comp pick. Again, this assumes Niemann doesn’t qualify for either AAV or contract timing, or because Green Bay retains him. If he gets added to the list, Green Bay can sign another external CFA without losing the Quay pick.
This may leave you lost in the sauce. I am currently lost in the sauce, and I’m the one writing it. Let’s take some key takeaways with us, though. Because of how comp pick cancellation works and the Packers’ relatively tight financial situation over the next couple of years (they can do what they need to, but they like to not do boom/bust), it’s not likely Green Bay spends on CFAs to an amount that would cancel out their highest picks. Green Bay is going to want four good comp picks in 2027 because they lack draft capital from the Micah Parsons trade and want cheap and controllable roster spots. That means, depending on what they do with Enagbare, Rhyan, and Niemann, they may only be able to sign one, maybe two, legitimate free agents this spring. Again, this does not impact cap casualties, just true unrestricted free agents. So if you’re putting together plans to add a nose tackle like DJ Reader, Khyris Tonga, or Roy Lopez, adding a starting-quality off-ball linebacker, and then throwing some cornerback competition or a starting center on top of that, just know that Green Bay is not probably going down that route. They want them picks. They, frankly, need them picks.