NFL admits compensatory pick error, Bengals earn third-round selection

The league has upgraded the Bengals from a sixth-round pick to a third-round pick.

When the Cincinnati Bengals were awarded two sixth-round compensatory draft picks by the NFL, questions were immediately raised about whether the league got it wrong.

Specifically, experts pointed out that a mis-weighing of the contracts signed by Jessie Bates (with Atlanta) and Orlando Brown Jr. (with Cincinnati) should have allotted the Bengals an extra third-round pick instead.

And it turns out there was a mistake.

Monday, the NFL re-awarded compensatory picks, revising the original announcement and the Bengals were awarded a third-round pick.

That means the Bengals go from a late-200s pick from the original sixth-round comp pick to No. 97 overall.

In the league’s valuation of contracts on the first pass, it weighed Bates as a fourth-round value, canceling out the comp pick possibility, as Brown was also weighed as a fourth-rounder. In Monday’s revision, it appears Bates is a third-round value, earning the team an additional high pick.

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