CINCINNATI — Joe Burrow continues to give back to multiple communities and he recently helped prepare meals with La Soupe in Cincinnati as part of a charitable initiative between his foundation and Guinness.

CINCINNATI — The Bengals were awarded two sixth-round compensatory picks on Friday, giving them nine total selections in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Those picks are awarded to teams that lost free agents the year prior.

Nick Korte is a compensatory pick expert. He pays attention to the formulas, how they work and usually nails his predictions every year.

The Bengals lost Jessie Bates last year, but signed Orlando Brown Jr. Most expected those two players to cancel each other out and keep Cincinnati from getting a third-round compensatory pick for losing Bates.

It turns out there’s at least a chance the Bengals should’ve gotten a third rounder instead of one of the two sixth-rounders they received.

Korte points out inconsistencies in this year’s formula, including three specific teams that should ask for clarity from the NFL Management Council: Bengals, Bills and 49ers.

Read the breakdown below, which includes thoughts on the cutoff and history of the NFL Management Council making mistakes.

The Cincinnati Bengals and the NFL league office haven’t had the greatest relationship as of late.

The most recent example seems to be them possibly making a mistake that cost the Bengals a third-round selection instead of a sixth.

Nick Korte from Over the Cap has been regarded as an expert on the NFL compensatory pick formulas that help repay teams who lost major free agents the past offseason.But the Bengals may have also missed out on a 3rd rounder for the departure of Jessie Bates, if the 3rd/4th cutoff was closer to expected, but in between his contract and that of Orlando Brown, Jr.

To simplify it, the NFL rewards compensatory picks to teams who lost free agents and then did not refill that need with another free agent during free agency. They also look at things like how much that free agent played the last season, the contract they earned, and accolades.

All of these things give a player a rank that corresponds with a pick value (third round being the highest). So if a team lost a third-round talent and didn’t sign a free agent that also earned a third-round value, they would get a third-round compensatory pick. There is a lot more that goes into it, but that is essentially the basis of the practice.

So how does Cincinnati fit into this? Well, Korte thinks that the NFL made a mistake and that the Bengals are one of the teams that should be making a call to the NFL.

In order to make this work, the 3rd/4th round cutoff would have to been in a verry narrow range between the contracts of Javon Hargrave (valued by the NFLMC as a 3rd) & Jessie Bates (valued as a 4th), at the 62nd ranked player.

That is obviously a drastic difference in compensation. In the 2023 draft, a third-round compensatory pick was roughly a top-100 pick. In the same draft, a sixth-round selection was outside 200.

This is a fairly big difference in Cincinnati’s draft strategy. That extra top-100 pick could turn out to be a potential starter down the road.

Hopefully, they are able to make this right, and it doesn’t get added to the coin flip gate as ammo that the league appears is against the Bengals. After all, that cutoff being right where Jessie Bates fell is awfully suspicious, all things considered.

If nothing else, the league will hopefully find a way to explain where the confusion is regarding their decision.