Why the Dolphins Won't Get a Compensatory Draft Pick

It was bad enough that the Miami Dolphins ended up getting very little impact from their 2025 free agent class, but that group will end up costing them a draft pick or two this year on top of it.

The NFL will be announcing its list of compensatory picks for the 2026 NFL draft pretty soon, and based on the latest projections by Nick Korte of Over The Cap, the Dolphins will not be getting one of those because they not only didn't lose more compensatory free agents last offseason than they signed, they actually were in the plus-column.

And for all the consternation about Nick Westbrook-Ikhine playing in the final games and that pushing him over the threshhold to become a compensatory free agent, it ended up not mattering.

In the end, based on the complicated formula that we'll once again explain a bit later, the Dolphins ended up with five compensatory free agents signed (Zach Wilson, James Daniels, Ashtyn Davis, Ifeatu Melifonwu, Westbrook-Ikhine) against four compensatory free agents lost (Jevon Holland, Calais Campbell, Robert Jones, Emmanuel Ogbah).

The Dolphins lost six other unrestricted free agents last offseason, but none of them got a high enough annual average salary to qualify as a compensatory UFA.

The truly sad part for the Dolphins is that only one of the five compensatory free agents they got last year is under contract with the team for 2026, that being Melifonwu. And the contributions of the whole group in 2025 were, shall we say, rather underwhelming.

Had the Dolphins been able to get into the negative column in terms of compensatory free agents signed and lost, they would have been in line for a fourth-round pick as compensation for losing Holland, who got a big-money deal with the New York Giants.

Instead, the Dolphins will get shut out in that department.

It's a sharp contrast to last year when the Dolphins got three compensatory draft picks, one in the third round, one in the fourth and one in the seventh after the free agent departures of Robert Hunt, Christian Wilkins, Andrew Van Ginkel and several others.

THE INS AND OUTS OF THE COMPENSATORY PICK FORMULA

The whole formula regarding the "compensatory draft system" makes up Appendix V of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and the league, it involves 11 sections, and it's complicated enough to give anybody a headache.

But to summarize things, the NFL puts together a list of "compensatory free agent" (CFA) every year and first is ranked by annual average salary, but then playing time and postseason accolades are factored in to adjust the list.

Once the list is finalized, it's then divided into different levels, where the top 5 percent net a third-round compensatory pick, the next 5 percent a fourth-round pick, and so forth. And then teams that have more losses than gains among those CFAs get compensatory draft picks, up to a maximum of four in any draft.

There's no definitive date for when the NFL will announce the 2026 compensatory picks, but as a point of reference that news was released last year on March 12.

The key terms that apply here in the formula are Average Yearly Compensation (AYC) and Compensatory Free Agents (CFA), and CFAs are those players who sign during the unrestricted free agency period and rank in the top 35 percent in AYC, which includes signing bonus, option bonus, salary, roster bonus and reporting bonus.

The qualifying players then are ranked by AYC with the lowest player getting one point, the second-lowest two, and so forth.

Then come additional points awarded based on honors or participation: first-team All-NFL by the PFWA or AP is worth 20 points; All-Conference (if not All-Pro) is worth 5 points: one point for each percent of the total offensive/defensive plays in which the player participated on offense or defense.

All the points then are tallied for a final Financial Numerical Value (FNV), and it's that FNV that comes into play when a team loses more CFAs than it signs during an offseason, which is what happened with the Dolphins in 2024.

Before last year, the Dolphins had last received compensatory draft picks in 2020 when they got one in the fourth round and one in the seventh, though they ended up trading both of them.

The Dolphins did get a third-round compensatory pick in 2017 for the loss of defensive end Olivier Vernon, who signed with the New York Giants after the Dolphins placed the franchise tag on him and then rescinded it.