Washington Zero NFL Draft Comp Picks: Good Or Bad Thing?

Numbers are like a cooperative dance partner: You can move them about any way you wish.

So it is with the celebration or cursing of a team's comp picks.

The Washington Football Team was not given any compensatory draft picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, and if you are trying to build a roster - especially with a tight salary cap of $182 million - draft picks are valuable because the players taken represent affordable labor.

So zero comp picks for the WFT is bad ... right?

We have heard people try to argue to the contrary. ... to insist that the lack of comp picks this year means a team didn't lose anybody of value off their 2019 roster, players who made a move to a new team, made an impact, made money ...

Baloney.

Not losing free agents off your team, and not getting compensated for their departure, can also mean your team didn't have good enough players to be grabbed by the other clubs.

Maybe the 2019 Washington Football Team didn’t lose any players of great value in 2020 free agency last summer because the WFT kept most of the worthy ones - and won a division title because of them - and either a) kept others who aren't all that good or b) shed themselves of some who ended up not being coveted.

Be honest about the WFT in this draft: Was it worth it to fall to the No. 19 slot in the selection process in exchange for making the playoffs? Absolutely. The experience gained, the "scar tissue'' acquired, and that chance at grabbing the brass ring?

Always worth it.

But check out the WFT's main competition in the NFC East. The Dallas Cowboys - who via one of the Jones boys and even newly-signed QB Dak Prescott are openly saying they will "absolutely'' win the East this year - have a roster that most analysts will argue is at least the equal of Washington's ... and was in 2019 as well.

Dallas lost players off that 2019 team and was still the 2020 favorite until Prescott got hurt in Week 5.

So, a comparable roster ... plus Dallas gets four comp picks this April?

That doesn't make Dallas "worse'' than Washington. "Four'' isn't worse than "zero'' if the rosters remain comparable.

No, the goal for Washington is to build a roster so deep in talent that when it's time to decide to not pay the "only good'' players, they let them go ... replace them with a similarly-talented player ... and collect the comp pick later.

Washington wants to get to be that good. Don't let anybody dance the numbers in a way that says otherwise.