The NFL had to make a slight change to the 2024 draft order on Monday after the league realized that it had made a mistake when handing out compensatory picks over the weekend.
The NFL has now corrected the mistake and now that the error has been fixed, the Cincinnati Bengals are going to come away as the biggest winner. When the league originally handed out the compensatory picks, the Bengals were awarded two extra slots in the sixth-round (208th and 214th overall).
After fixing the mistake, the NFL announced on Monday that the Bengals actually should have been awarded one THIRD-ROUND pick and one sixth-round pick. Now that the error has been fixed, the Bengals will be getting the 97th overall pick -- 111 spots higher than the NFL originally had them -- along with the 214th overall pick.
By moving the Bengals up to 97th, that actually throws a wrench into the draft order, because it means that every pick from 97th through the 207th will now be dropping back one spot. The Eagles were originally awarded the 97th overall pick on Friday, but now, they'll be getting the 98th overall pick. The Panthers were supposed to start the fourth round with the 100th overall pick in the draft, but that pick will now come at 101.
The NFL sent a memo out to all 32 teams on Monday and said that the error happened because of a mistake in the "Honors" calculation
"We have confirmed that there were no other errors in the calculation," the memo said, via Pro Football Talk. "We regret any inconvenience to the Clubs."
According to Nick Korte of Over the Cap, the NFL didn't put a high enough value on the loss of Jessie Bates, who left Cincinnati for Atlanta during the 2023 offseason.
If Jessie Bates's contract was valued as a 3rd, and Orlando Brown Jr.'s was valued as a 4th, this is what the Bengals' cancellation chart would have looked like: a 3rd and a 6th, instead of two 6ths. pic.twitter.com/ggdirDLfnP
— Nick Korte (@nickkorte) March 8, 2024
The NFL gives out compensatory picks every year and although the exact formula the league uses to award picks hasn't been released, we do know that it basically comes down to this: A team that loses more or better free agents than it acquires in the previous year is eligible to receive compensatory draft picks.
The formula is apparently a little complicated, which might explain why the NFL didn't get things right when the picks were originally handed out on Friday.
