Steelers can get a higher compensatory pick for Justin Fields than they traded for him

Last year, the Steelers traded a 2025 sixth-round pick to the Bears for quarterback Justin Fields. This year, the Jets agreed to sign Fields to a two-year, $40 million contract. Which means next year, the Steelers are set to get a higher compensatory pick in the 2026 NFL draft for losing Fields than the one they gave up to acquire him.

It's too early in the free agency process to know for sure which teams will get which compensatory picks next year — that's determined by a complex formula that the NFL will apply at the end of the 2025 season. But longtime compensatory pick analyst Nick Korte predicts that the Steelers will get either a third-round pick or a fourth-round pick in the 2026 draft, depending on whether Fields plays most of the Jets' offensive snaps in the 2025 season.

That means the Steelers gave up a 2025 sixth-round pick to get a 2026 third- or fourth-round pick — a trade any team would gladly make, even before you add in the fact that the Steelers also got Fields, who helped them reach the playoffs by leading them to a 4-2 record in the games he started before giving way to Russell Wilson. And Fields only cost the Steelers $3.3 million in salary cap space because the Bears had already paid most of his rookie contract before trading him.

You can argue whether the Bears should have traded Fields if a sixth-round pick was all they could get for him, and you can argue whether the Jets should have signed Fields to such a lucrative contract when the last two teams he played for didn't want him as their starter anymore. But you can't argue whether the Steelers handled the Fields acquisition wisely. They clearly did.

Smart franchises think about compensatory picks when making personnel decisions because compensatory picks yield long-term picks benefits. The Steelers will benefit from trading for Fields in next year's draft, two years after trading for him and a year after letting him leave in free agency.