The Raiders had some notable losses in the 2025 off-season, headlined by standout safety Tre’Von Moehrig signing with the Carolina Panthers on a 3 year, 34 million contract. Additionally the team saw CB Nate Hobbs (4 years, 48M) depart for the Packers, ILB Robert Spillane (3 years, 33M), SAF Marcus Epps (1 year, 2.03M), and EDGE K’Lavon Chaisson (1 year, 5M) for the Patriots, and finally ILB Divine Deablo (2 years, 14M) head to the Falcons. It was a rather heavy offseason filled with turnover for the Las
Vegas front office, but through that comes the implementation of compensatory picks.
For each draft, the NFL awards at least 32 additional picks for losses of certain players, teams can also earn additional compensatory picks for having a minority candidate hired as a head coach or general manager. The compensatory pick formula is rather complex and I will try to sum it up as best as possible. To calcuate a players compensatory value, contracts are ranked via a total Financial Number, every player in the NFL has a financial number (Bills QB Josh Allen is the highest at 2052). These values are made up of the following points:
- An inverse ranking of the contracts average per year (highest to lowest) – based on new contracts at the start of the league year, essentially every FA contract signed does value into this
- One point for each percentage points of snaps played on offense or defense (minimum of 25%). Last year the highest mark for this was 98 (Lions’ RT Penei Sewell and Chiefs’ C Creed Humphrey)
- 20 additional points if honored to the AP All-Pro Teams
- 5 additional points if honored to the PFWA Award List
After this each round is assigned a percentile base of the entire NFL, starting at the 3rd round, such as Round 3 (top 5%), Round 4 (5.1% – 10%), Round 5 (10.1% – 15%), Round 6 (15.1% – 25%), and Round 7 (25.1% – 35%). Through this each player is now assigned a value and from that a compensatory round pick value as well. While these values don’t fully represent each players value (i.e Josh Allen worth far more than just one third round pick) they are a way to redistribute draft compensation to teams as a way to also allow a salary cap (looking at you MLB).
With all that said and done, there’s one other stipulation. Contracts can cancel each other out, which is how you meet the value’s received. Teams can lose players with certain values, and gain others with that value which will in the NFL’s eyes “negate the loss of player A”. This can be seen when teams lose a high priced free agent and then sign another high priced one, the NFL believes you have recouped your loss. For the Raiders, they negated the loss of Robert Spillane (5th round value) with the addition of Jeremy Chinn (6th round value). In addition they negated the loss of Divine Deablo (6th round value) with the addition of ILB Elandon Roberts (7th round value). These are based on the previously stated formula. Through all that, they did not replace the losses of SAF Tre’Von Moehrig (4th round value), CB Nate Hobbs (5th round value), and EDGE K’Lavon Chaisson (7th round value).
While the value of players can go up and down within a season, which is noted by snap counts and if a player earns an award, the values usually hold up relative to their current note. The Raiders are currently projected to receive a 4th, 5th, and 7th round compensatory pick in the 2026 draft and that can change based on those markers, not only with their losses but also with the additions. At the moment, CB Eric Stokes is not counting for the Raiders however if he plays above his current total points value, it’s likely he could eliminate the loss of K’Lavon Chaisson. The Raiders will be hoping Moehrig, Hobbs, Spillane, Deablo, and Chaisson all continue to play high snaps which will upkeep their values.
NFL teams value compensatory picks, it’s a key reason you let players walk instead of paying them and one can argue that 4th round selection may turn out to be a better choice than paying Moehrig 17M annually as the third highest paid safety in the NFL.
