Bears get 4th-round compensatory draft choice for losing Adrian Amos to Green Bay
For the first time in 11 drafts the Bears will have a compensatory draft choice.
The NFL league office announced Monday the Bears are receiving a fourth-round draft choice, No. 140 overall.
The pick rewards the Bears for losing Adrian Amos to the Green Bay Packers last offseason.
The way the system works is each spring the league designates the most valuable unrestricted free agents that switched teams the previous season based on a secret formula including salary, playing time and postseason honors earned.
A maximum of 32 compensatory picks can be awarded in the third through seventh rounds with the round dictated by the value of the player lost, according to the league's formula. This comes with the caveat that a team doesn't sign a free agent of equal or greater value.
The Bears pick at 140 is the 12th-highest compensatory pick awarded this year, suggesting the league's formula ranked Amos the 12th most important player in 2019 who moved.
With the Houston Texans getting the highest compensatory pick at 97, we can assume Tyrann Mathieu was the top-rated free agent last year. At picks 98 and 100, the Patriots got third rounders we'd guess for Trent Brown and Trey Flowers. And at 99, the New York Giants got their pick for Landon Collins and so on.
Amos wasn't necessarily the 12th "best" player that moved, but based on what Green Bay paid him and the number of snaps he took for them, the Bears didn't sign any free agents with a similar amount of salary and playing time.
This is very good news for Ryan Pace on a number of fronts.
Pace defenders make much of the premise that he inherited one of the least talented rosters in the NFL when he took over for Phil Emery in 2015, and it is hard to dispute when you realize the totality of players that have left via free agency since he got here and not one of them merited a compensatory pick.
Pace seems to be batting a thousand on the players he has chosen to let move on, and he also deserves additional credit because while perhaps the bar has been low, he has brought in superior talent, or at least superior production at reasonable salaries in every one of his first five free agent classes.
Viewed through that lens, the news could continue to get better.
Remember Amos was his fifth-round pick (142 overall) in Pace's first draft. He started every game as a rookie and 60 games overall for the Bears in his four seasons, in Chicago and they now get a fourth-round pick in return for him, slightly more than the full value they invested.
And this could be the beginning of a trend.
Had Bryce Callahan not predictably have spent a huge chunk of 2019 on the Broncos injury report, the Bears might have gotten a second compensatory pick and should any of Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Danny Trevathan and Nick Kwiatkoski - all Pace acquisitions - leave this year, any or all could yield comp picks next year.
Another way to view the value of the Bears compensatory pick is while these picks couldn't be traded until 2017, they can now.
Suppose the Bears have identified a tight end, safety or even quarterback they think could fall to them at 43, but as Day 2 starts to unwind, they fear that player could go a few picks sooner.
According to the NFL's draft pick value chart, by packaging the 43rd pick with 140, the Bears could move up to 40 or 39.
Or perhaps they just use the pick.
Tight ends Albert Okwuegbunam and Dalton Keene; safeties Antoine Brooks Jr., Brandon Jones and Josh Metellus; and guards Netane Muti, Keith Ismael and Logan Stenburg are all players with solid if not spectacular NFL grades that could, perhaps should be available at 140.
Actually if memory serves me, weren't Bilal Nichols and Jordan Howard Pace's picks number 145 and 150?
Monday was a good day for the Bears, and down the road, history may make it look even better.