These picks are awarded to teams based on the players that teams lost in free agency from the prior year. The picks are based on a formula which takes into account playing time, salary and postseason honors with the player’s new team. An example is Sam Darnold’s breakout 2024 season with the Minnesota Vikings resulting in his prior team, the San Francisco 49ers, gaining an additional fourth-round pick. There are 32 picks in total, and this year’s were awarded to 15 teams. The picks are positioned between Round 3 and Round 7.
In addition to the 32 standard compensatory picks are three special selections. These aren’t handed out due to player movement but rather coaches and/or front office executives who switched teams via minority employees being hired to new roles. The NFL began handing out these special selections in 2020 to promote diversity among coach and front office candidates. So if a team loses a minority coach or front office member to an NFL head coach or GM position, then that team will receive third-round picks in consecutive drafts.
Among the 35 total compensatory picks, two teams were clear winners: the 49ers and Miami Dolphins. They were each awarded an extra third-round pick, and they also were awarded a total of four compensatory draft picks, which is tied with two other teams for the most.
The 49ers’ other draft picks came via the team losing Darnold in free agency (Round 4), losing Ray-Ray McCloud (Round 7) and losing Charlie Woerner (Round 7).
Miami’s third-round pick came via losing Robert Hunt, who went on to make a Pro Bowl last year with the Panthers. The Dolphins’ fourth rounder was by way of Christian Wilkins joining the Raiders, while the seventh rounders were via the team losing DeShon Elliott and Cedrick Wilson Jr.
The highest-positioned compensatory pick will be the No. 97 selection in the 2025 NFL Draft, by the Minnesota Vikings. That was the result of Kirk Cousins signing a four-year, $180 million deal with the Falcons last offseason. Even though Cousins was benched late in the year, the average annual salary of the contract made him the biggest “value” lost of any player, thus awarding Minnesota, which lost him in free agency.
Just like non-compensatory draft picks, these 35 picks can be traded by teams. They all fall at the end of their respective rounds.
Outside of the Dolphins and 49ers, the other teams to be awarded four picks were the Ravens and Cowboys. Additionally, outside of San Francisco, the other two teams to be awarded special selection third-round picks were the Los Angeles Rams, for losing coach Raheem Morris to Atlanta, and the Detroit Lions, for losing coach Aaron Glenn to the New York Jets. With the special selection rules awarding compensation for two consecutive years, the Lions will also get a third-round pick in the 2026 draft.
Teams have long attempted to gain compensatory picks by simply signing players they know they won’t retain, with the hopes that the player would then land a subsequent deal in free agency, and thus, reward his former team with draft pick compensation. An example came just this past season with Diontae Johnson and the Baltimore Ravens. After the Carolina Panthers traded Johnson to Baltimore just prior the deadline, Johnson would play in only four games for the Ravens, catching a single pass. He would eventually be suspended by Baltimore, then released, only to be scooped up by the Texans off waivers.
However, Houston would then waive him during its playoff run, and Baltimore swooped in one day later and surprisingly claimed a player off waivers it had just suspended, then cut. That was done with the hopes that Johnson would land a contract during this offseason—or produce in a way during the 2025 NFL season—that would net Baltimore a compensatory pick in 2026.
