Seahawks awarded two third-round compensatory picks

The Seattle Seahawks were awarded two third-round compensatory draft picks from the NFL. These picks are tradeable assets for the first time ever.

The NFL announced the awarded compensatory pick for the 2017 NFL Draft today. The Seattle Seahawks were given a pair of third round draft picks for players they lost in free agency a year ago.

The Seahawks now have four third-round picks. They have 6 picks in the first two days of the draft. That is a lot of draft capital to with which to reload their roster with young talent.

This is much better than what we expected the Seahawks to be awarded. The projections has the Seahawks being awarded a 3rd and a 5th. The 5th was borderline, and might have ended up as a 4th, or so we thought.

The new picks will come as the 102nd overall selection and the 106th overall selection.

For the first time ever, these compensatory draft picks are tradeable. If the Seahawks choose to do so, they can package some of those third-round picks and use them to move up in in round round to get an impact player that wouldn’t normally drop to them at 26th overall.

Overall, this is a fairly remarkable occurrence. It wasn’t long ago that we feared that the Seahawks were going to lose their 2nd-round pick for failing to disclose Richard Sherman’s knee injury. Instead they got off with a warning and then were awarded a pair of third round picks. It is tough to complain about that.

Next: Introducing The Hawks Playbook - our new podcast

Normally the NFL does not announce  awarded compensatory picks until the NFL combine. This year the combine is a week later than normal. With the beginning of the league year and the installation of the new-year’s salary cap set for March 9th, the league office was wise to announce the comp picks early this year.