Packers Free Agency: Moving forward, signings will also cost a draft pick

Last week, we wrote about how the Green Bay Packers probably won’t offset their top four compensatory draft picks, unless they take one really, really big swing. This has sort of been the Packers’ overall strategy with the compensatory pick formula under general manager Brian Gutekunst, as they tend to offset compensatory draft picks by several rounds of value (they usually spend 2.3 times more on what they gain than what they lose) when they do offset picks (and they collect picks more than they offset).

So far this free agency, if you haven’t noticed by now, they have continued this trend. They’ve made one compensatory free agent signing, cornerback Benjamin St-Juste, which has offset the Kingsley Enagbare (sixth-round comp pick) loss. The Packers were never going to claim the Enagbare pick, though, unless they offset a higher pick, since teams can only claim up to four picks in a given year (being the top four). Enagbare was always going to be (at least) fifth in the pecking order, behind the losses of Malik Willis, Rasheed Walker, Romeo Doubs and Quay Walker.

I know a lot of you folks are checking the tables on sites like Over The Cap (they do a great job) right now, seeing what the Packers are owed. I want to stress, though, that these numbers are extremely fluid right now.

Here are all of the things that could factor into these comp pick numbers:

The way the comp pick formula works is that every player in the NFL is sorted by the average per year (APY) at the end of the regular season (for the 2027 picks, it’s the end of the 2026 season). This is done in reverse order. For example, former Packers linebacker Quay Walker, who just signed with the Las Vegas Raiders, is ranked ahead of 1,731 qualifying players in APY at $13.5 million per year, so he’s given 1,731 points by the formula. Beyond APY, there are two other ways players can gain points:

Once these points are calculated (which won’t be until the end of the regular season in 2026), losses that rank among the top five percent of players result in their prior team being awarded a third-round pick. Below is how the tiers break down:

It’s not a certain number of raw points you need to hit to qualify for a pick; it’s relative to the entire league, which is why playing time, cap casualties, future signings and future extensions (done before the end of the 2026 regular season) will morph these thresholds over time.

As a hold for snap counts, OTC has used a player’s previous season’s playing time in its calculations for 2026. This is probably why you’ve heard that Malik Willis will go from a fourth-round pick to a third-round pick when he gets on the field. Right now, he has a 0 for his playing time points awarded, which has him and his $22.5 million APY ranked below Kevin Doston, who has an APY of just $16 million, for example.

At this point in time, the best way to project 2027 comp picks is by looking at the numbers that led to 2026 comp picks being awarded. APY prices haven’t actually increased that much this year (center is a different story), and the market is kind of pushing back at some positions, which might be a sign that spending above the salary cap could actually go down a bit for the first time since the pandemic. That’s a whole other article, but the general theme you should take out of this is that the 2026 player market is pretty in line with the 2025 player market.

If you compare the Packers’ losses this year — Willis for $22.5 million, Doubs for $17.5 million, Walker for $13.5 million and Enagbare for $10 million — you can safely claim that Green Bay should (anything can happen but these are pretty firm projections) be able to net a 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th in the compensatory pick formula for these players, as long as Willis is the starting quarterback in Miami and doesn’t blow out his ACL in September or something.

That 6th has already been canceled out, though, and will be replaced by whatever Rasheed Walker signs for. If Walker signs for north of $21 million per, as expected, that means Green Bay should be working under the assumption that they’ll have two 3rds, a 4th and a 5th coming in 2027, barring a major injury to one of these outgoing free agents in 2026.

Going into this offseason, the Packers had the potential to offset two compensatory free agents without touching those top four contracts, as Enagbare and Sean Rhyan were expected to qualify for at least a 7th-round APY. Green Bay re-signed Rhyan, taking a swing off the board, and has already canceled out the Enagbare pick, though. Based on how the comp pick formula works, the Packers are now officially out of the free swings portion of free agency. For every new compensatory free agent they add, they will lose a draft pick.

The order of operations of the comp pick formula is:

Now that Green Bay’s lowest available pick to cancel out is the expected fifth-rounder for Quay Walker, any qualifying compensatory free agent signing will offset a selection of at least that value. So, yes, even a free agent signing of $3 million APY (Bengals’ Cordell Volson currently hits the 35 percent mark with a $3.22 million APY) has the potential to not only cost the salary of his contract but also a mid-round pick in 2027, should the Packers add him.

It’s go big or go home territory for Green Bay in the compensatory free agent market. If a player’s contract expired, and that’s the reason why he’s a free agent, his addition will come with a lost pick for the Packers, unless, for some reason, tight end John FitzPatrick, coming off an Achilles tendon tear, can hit the $3 million-plus APY mark, putting an extra swing into play.

The good news is that there are ways that Green Bay can add players outside of the compensatory free agent market:

Alright, I tried to explain the Packers’ comp pick situation as best as I could without fluff. This could have been 10k words if we wanted to get into the nitty-gritty of it. If you have any further questions about Green Bay or comp picks, fire them off in the comment section below, and I’ll do my best to get to them.