Chicago Bears (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
The Chicago Bears will have a compensatory pick in this year’s draft, which will give their general manager more options.
For the first time in 10 years, the Chicago Bears will have a compensatory pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. While the qualification criteria are much more complicated, essentially, the NFL awards 32 compensatory picks each year to teams based on the players they lost and gained in free agency. Compensatory picks are awarded from the 3rd to 7th rounds, with the compensatory formula (taking into account the value of players lost and gained) determines where the teams pick.
This year, the Bears received a 4th round compensatory pick (No. 140 overall). Essentially, they will get the 34th pick in the 4th round. While that may not seem all that attractive, it most certainly is terrific news for the Bears. It not only signals that they have been drafting better recently (which has allowed them to let players walk and not sign as many in free agency) but it gives Ryan Pace another set of options in the draft.