ckparrothead
Premium Member
It's a very mechanical process.
Only players on expiring contracts count, one way or another. There's a pool of players with qualifying contracts, so every player that goes from one team to another counts as a 'loss' for one team and a 'gain' for another team. The qualifying losses are stacked up and sorted into rounds according to contract value, and then that figure can end up being slightly modified upward or downward by virtue of their playing time and post-season honors (e.g. pro bowl).
Then they stack your losses and gains next to one another, cancel them. But the way the cancellation works is a bit funky. Your 3rd round loss can only be canceled by another 3rd round gain...unless you end up with the same number or more gains than losses. So if you lost players that qualify as 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 7th round picks, and you gained players that qualify as 4th and 7th round picks, then your 5th rounder will be canceled by the 4th rounder. Your 3rd rounder will remain. Then the 7th round gain cancels one of the 7th round losses. You're left with a 3rd and 7th.
But then those remainder losses that haven't been canceled get stacked up league-wide and only the top 32 are awarded picks. So let's say your remainders are a 3rd and 7th. If those stack up and the 7th rounder ranks 35th in the league among remainders, then you're not gonna get a pick for it. You'll just get the 3rd rounder.