Zero Compensatory Draft Picks for the L.A. Chargers in 2017

Compensatory picks in the NFL are a funny thing. I have no idea who awards them, except that the league hands them out.

The reasoning for them is even more odd. Compensatory picks are given to teams based on the contract value of players that left the team, minus the contract values of players the team signed. Like this....

The Los Angeles Chargers los, via free agency last offseason, Eric Weddle (to the Ravens), Ladarius Green (to the Steelers), and Patrick Robinson (to the Colts). They lost other players too, but those are the three that warranted big enough contracts to register into this system.

However, they won’t be getting any sort of compensation for that because they signed Travis Benjamin, Casey Hayward and Brandon Mebane to contracts that end up equaling about what the contracts that went out the door are worth. To make sure they didn’t get anything, they added some mid-level contracts for Dwight Lowery, Matt Slauson, Chris Hairston, and Kellen Clemens.

The Chargers are set to potentially lose Melvin Ingram and Danny Woodhead in free agency this year, but not much else. Expect them to be in this same position next season.