It wasn’t too long ago the Cincinnati Bengals heavily leaned on the compensatory pick process to help round out the roster each year.
That reliance on the process of getting draft picks in exchange for losing free agents to other teams has dramatically faded. Naturally, too, given the team’s willingness to spend big on outside free agents in the Joe Burrow era.
Looking ahead, though, the Bengals could have as many as four compensatory picks in the 2024 NFL draft based on their pending free agents this year.
Nick Korte of Over The Cap took Pro Football Focus’ top 100 free agents analysis and creatively rolled that into compensatory pick projections to come up with the following:
If @PFF_Brad's contract estimations in this article ended up being completely accurate, this chart would indicate how many compensatory free agents each team could lose, and the round of the comp picks they would get if they don't cancel out those losses with signing other CFAs. https://t.co/uq8MSjl51w pic.twitter.com/nndnWRMCjX
— Nick Korte (@nickkorte) February 6, 2023
In other words, if the Bengals lose their biggest free agents this summer and don’t offset the losses with outside signings, they’d be looking at roughly one extra fourth-rounder, a pair of fifth-rounders and one sixth-rounder (based on the potential losses of Jessie Bates, Germaine Pratt, Hayden Hurst and Vonn Bell).
It’s little more than a fun thought exercise right now, of course. The Bengals don’t figure to lose all four guys, nor do they project to sit still and not look for outside help. But the team could reap the benefits of extra draft picks just based on their first offseason of potential major losses in free agency.
