Compensatory Draft Picks Give Green Bay Packers Added Trade Capital

On Tuesday, the NFL announced the compensatory draft picks that each team will be receiving for the 2022 NFL Draft. For the Green Bay Packers, they will receive a fourth-round pick (No. 135 overall) and a seventh-round pick (No. 258 overall).

For those wondering what a compensatory draft pick is, they are awarded to teams who lost more compensatory free agents than they signed during the previous offseason. A compensatory free agent is determined by a formula that takes into account the playing time of the free-agent lost, their salary, and any postseason honors they’ve received.

The Green Bay Packers were awarded a fourth and seventh-round pick in this year’s draft after losing Corey Linsley and Jamaal Williams in free agency last offseason.

This now gives the Packers nine draft picks overall, including a pair of fourth-rounders. Having an additional fourth-round pick can come with plenty of value in the fact that you can still find Day 1 contributors at that point in the draft.

Just last year, Green Bay selected Royce Newman in the fourth-round, and he would go on to start all but one game in 2021. Other notable fourth-round picks include David Bakhtiari, Josh Sitton, TJ Lang, Mike Daniels, Blake Martinez, Dean Lowry, and Jamaal Williams, among others.

But in addition to that, having an additional fourth-round selection gives Brian Gutekunst some added draft capital to trade up with–which is something that we know he likes to do, especially early on.

During his first draft in 2018, after trading back initially, Gutey would move up in Round 1 to select Jaire Alexander. Then in Round 3 of that same year, he would move up to take Oren Burks. In the following draft, Gutekunst would move up again in Round 1, this time to select Darnell Savage. In 2020, as we all know, he would move up to take Jordan Love, and just last year, Gutey traded up once again in Round 3 to select Amari Rodgers.

In order to make those trades happen, it would take two fourth-round picks to get Savage, one fourth-rounder to move up for Love, and one fourth-round pick to select Rodgers.

Now armed with a pair of fourth-round picks in this year’s draft as well as Gutey’s track record of navigating his way up the draft board, that compensatory pick that the Packers received could give them the added capital to make another early-round trade. And depending on how far up the board they move, they may not have to use both fourth-round picks, still leaving themselves with one to use.

What happens in free agency can certainly change things, but right now, the big positions of need for the Green Bay Packers include the interior defensive line, wide receiver, offensive tackle, a pass-catching tight end, cornerback depth, and a third safety.

As we’ve seen in each of Gutekunst’s first four drafts as GM, he isn’t afraid to move up to go and get his guy, and now he has some extra trade chips to be aggressive once again.