TH and Compensatory Draft Picks

[Ennjay]

I know that if a team loses a free agent without signing an equal or better (more expensive?) one it can get a compensatory draft pick at the end of a round. Henry was a second-round pick, but I don't think comp picks are ever any better than the end of the third round (if even). If Henry stays on the roster all year and then signs elsewhere as a free agent, would the Bills get a compensatory draft pick for him (assuming they don't sign a better FA next off-season?)

 

Assuming they did, how good could it be? I expect it wouldn't be that good of a pick (for example, a pick at the end of the third round is really just a headstart on the fourth round, so I would think of it as fourth-round quality). But I'm wondering if TD already has a minimum return for TH even if he never moves him to another team. (This assumes away all the problems of keeping TH around while his trade value diminishes and his attitude gets worse.)

 

Does anyone know how this would work?

[LabattBlue]

The NFL looks at the performance level(in this case the 2005 season) as a group, of the UFA's you signed versus the UFA's you lost. If the ones you lost outperformed the ones you signed, you get compensatory picks the following year. The NFL has a formula for determining "performance level" and what picks get awarded.

[VABills]

Yeah the Bills may have to give up a draft pick just to have someone takes travis off our hands.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I think even the folks who are paid to know this system can't tell you exactly how it works because this issue of compensatory picks for FA losses is embodied within the Comprehesive Bargaining Agreement between the NFL and NFLPA whose complete text can be found on the NFLPA website at >

 

http://www.nflpa.org/media/main.asp?subPage=CBA+Complete <

 

A look at this document and the extension of it reveal a few hundred pages of lawyer talk, charts and graphs and a plethora of side letters which clarify and modify this document on a detailed and ongoing basis.

 

To make matters more unfathomable, the compensation is decided in a blacki box which cannot be seen by the public whose criteria for compensation change from time to time without announcement before their release each year.

 

The key factors to consider for us lowly fans is:

 

1. There is NO compensation given for the loss or gain of an individual player, but instead compensation is determined on an evaluation of a team's entire loss and/or gain from FA in a given year.

 

Thus if you lose Henry but other FA moves that year give you a gain from the total FA transactions judged by this group you will get NO compensation for the loss of this individual.

 

2. Compensation is being reduced over time.

 

This compensation is not a formal restraint on trade because the team gaining an FA gives up nothing to get them. Thus there is not disincentive for a team to sign an FA such as the Bills signing Spikes, Fletcher, Posey, Adams etc and not having to give any compensation to the team which lost him. However, to the extent that the league compensates a team that had total FA losses this may make them less willing to bid to keep a player and thus restrains free market salary growth. The NFL insisted on some compensation as old contracts were signed by teams without the CBA or the coming of a freer market for the players as a thought. The NFLPA agreed to transitory compensation and the amount given out has dropped over the years to the highest compensation being a 3rd round pick.

 

Overall, GMs seem to take the compensation factor into account, but it appears to be a much smaller factor in their assessment than the quality of player, his age, injury history, etc. that it does not seem to influence decisions one way or the other.

 

The compensation has become so low and is in the form of an assigned draft pick (even 1st round choices are a crapshoot) that GMs are happy to get more tools but do not seem to alter their judgments based on compensation which is difficult to predict, fairly small in value and a year and change removed from the loss of the player anyway.

 

As far as Travis goes, the Bills would only be compensated with a 2007 draft pick after it was assessed how the Bills did in total with the 2006 FA class. The determination would be made by a committee representing the NFL and NFLPA based on factors like what the market said a loss FA was worth based on the size of the new contract rewarded him.

 

TD would have no control over:

 

1, The size of the new TH deal,

2. What the committee decides to do with that deal in terms of overall compensation to the Bills,

3. Selection and weighting of the factors which determine that compensation

 

Etctera.

 

If folks are assessing whether its best to trade TH or let him go as an FA, I wouldn't even bother because the actual compensation related to his loss would be pretty impossible to even estimate well.

[/dev/null]

by my understanding of compensatory picks, we would get nadda for TH

 

compensatory picks are awarded to compensate for losses due to the NFLs systems of unrestricted free agency

 

picks are not awarded if a player is cut or traded as those losses are initiated by the team not the player. also, with a trade the team has already been compensated by what they received in trade

 

picks are not awarded if a Restricted, Franchise, or Transistion free agent is lost. With RFA and TFA, the team has the right to match any offer so they are able to keep the player if they choose. With RFA and FFA there is already some kind of exchange

 

one of the biggest factor in determining compensatory picks is how many UFA a team signed vs how many they lost. if a team signed more UFA than they lost, they will not get any picks. for example, if bills lost 3 studs like Clements, TKO, and McGahee all in the same year but signed 4 duds like Rob Johnson, Ryan Leaf, Doug Flutie, and Akili Smith they would not get any compensation.

 

from there, the formula is calculated by a man behind a curtain in the land of Oz operating a black box powered by a Flux Capacitor

[Ennjay]

Thanks for the detailed reply. To change the question slightly:

 

I expected the Bills were entitled to comp picks down the road for losing Jennings and Pat Williams. Do I understand correctly from this thread that comp, if any, will be based on how they perform for their new teams in 2005 and be awarded for the 2006 draft? And that the performance of anyone the Bills sign this year will be balanced against what Jennings and Williams do?

 

Suppose the Bills sign A-Train and Willis, Henry, and Losman all get hurt, so A-Train and Couch start. Suppose they put up pretty good numbers. Would that mean the Bills may get no comp for a pair of lineman that don't really produce statistics, if that's how the Committee sees it?

[Ennjay]

by my understanding of compensatory picks, we would get nadda for TH

 

compensatory picks are awarded to compensate for losses due to the NFLs systems of unrestricted free agency

 

picks are not awarded if a player is cut or traded as those losses are initiated by the team not the player.  also, with a trade the team has already been compensated by what they received in trade

 

picks are not awarded if a Restricted, Franchise, or Transistion free agent is lost.  With RFA and TFA, the team has the right to match any offer so they are able to keep the player if they choose.  With RFA and FFA there is already some kind of exchange

 

323830[/snapback]

I was assuming for the sake of the question that TH would not be cut or traded. And I'm pretty sure Travis won't he franchised.

[Ljberkow12]

The Bills will get no compensation if he becomes a free agent as the result of them waiving him. The only way they'll get anything is either by trade or if he plays out his contract at the end of 2005. No soup for you Tom Donahoe.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

The Bills are entitled to the league (a big difference than compensation from the team that signed them( compensation for loss of Jennings and Williams. The compenssation will be given next year (I believe) in the form of draft picks in the 2006 draft.

 

Compensation is certainly balanced against how the Bills do with signing FAs whose contracts had expired (I'm not sure about our signing of UFAs who were released and then signed by us).

 

The decision is definitely made factoring into it what contract the market provided to the FA. Other issues are more of a black box like olayer and.or team performance and I suspect they are taken into account but are not hard and fast drivers on decisions.

 

Folksare right that Henry only gives compensation for the Bills if he plays out this year of his contract as a Bill and leaves the team as an FA when the contract we signed him to (which was extended a year due to his poor fiscal management) lapses.