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The Green Bay Packers won’t receive a single compensatory draft pick in 2026
With minicamp in the rearview and training camp the next stop on the road, there’s no better time than now to look at how the league-wide free-agency landscape played out this offseason. According to Nick Korte of Over the Cap, all of the deals that could potentially impact individual teams in the NFL’s 2026 compensatory draft pick formula — which tries to even the playing field for squads that lost a significant number of free agents in one offseason — have now been inked.
This means two things: First, it means that any signings from this point forward will not count against the Green Bay Packers’ compensatory draft pick calculation. Secondly, and here’s the bad news: The Packers aren’t expected to receive a compensatory draft pick next year because of how much they spent on the signings of guard Aaron Banks and cornerback Nate Hobbs.
Per Korte, Banks’ four-year, $77 million deal with Green Bay is the fifth-largest contract that wasn’t offset in the compensatory cap calculations. Two of the players who will earn their previous teams higher draft picks than Banks’ projection are quarterbacks, Sam Darnold and Justin Fields, with offensive lineman Dan Moore Jr. and defensive tackle Milton Williams joining the group.
Get ready to hear a lot about the deal Moore signed. Despite leading the league in sacks allowed last season, Moore signed a four-year, $82 million deal with the Tennessee Titans this offseason, the blueprint that left tackle Rasheed Walker — who is in a contract year — will probably use in his negotiation with the Packers.
Green Bay taking Banks off the San Francisco 49ers’ hands will mint a fourth-round pick for the 49ers, while Hobbs earned the Las Vegas Raiders a fifth-round pick, according to OTC’s projections.
Had the Packers not spent any money in free agency this year, they would have received a sixth-round pick for defensive tackle T.J. Slaton signing with the Cincinnati Bengals and a seventh-round pick for cornerback Eric Stokes signing with the Raiders. Go ahead and bake that opportunity cost into the price that Green Bay paid for both Banks and Hobbs, who canceled out those selections in the comp pick formula.
If you’d like to read more on how the compensatory draft pick process works or which players were offset during the 2025 free agent period, OTC has you covered.
