The Washington Football Team will make a move on Saturday that includes a former Pittsburgh Steelers draft pick being released. That move, however, might not impact the Steelers compensatory draft pick balance sheet.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN on Saturday, Washington will release safety Sean Davis on Saturday as part of the team trimming their roster down to 53 active players. Washington reportedly signed Davis, the Steelers former second-round draft pick out of Maryland, to a one year, $4 million that included $2 million fully guaranteed as part of a signing bonus.
By cutting Davis, the early speculation seems to be that such a transaction will costs the Steelers a 2021 sixth-round compensatory draft pick. That ultimately might not be the case, however, due to a change in the CBA this year.
According to Nick Korte of Over the Cap, Washington’s signing of Davis offset the Steelers signing of free afferent tight end Eric Ebron during the offseason. In previous years, the cutting of Davis this early would have resulted in him being no longer considered a free agent loss by the Steelers or a free agent gain by Washington. A change to Appendix V in the newest CBA this offseason, however, appears to have closed that loophole and now free agent signings stick on the balance sheet regardless if the player is cut before Week 10 of the season.
The only question at this point regarding Davis being released by Washington is if his contract will count on the compensatory balance sheet as a $4 million or $2 million deal. If it no longer counts as a $4 million value, that could potentially impact the Steelers balance sheet on the loss side. That question seemingly arose several weeks ago when the Dallas Cowboys parted ways with Gerald McCoy.
When will we find out for sure what the impact, if any, the Davis release will have on the Steelers side of the compensatory draft pick value sheet? It’s hard to say for sure. Korte is the master at reverse engineering that formula but it seems as of the time of this post that he’s still a little unsure about what McCoy’s value will be per the CBA change.
As soon as there is more information and certainty concerning the Davis compensatory value topic, I will make sure to pass it along.
As for where Davis will land now, it’s hard to say. Could he return to the Steelers on a minimum value contract? I suppose one can’t entirely rule that possibility out at this point. We’ll see in the next few days.
