Steelers one of several teams not awarded a compensatory draft pick in 2019

The NFL announced the official list of teams who will receive one of the 32 compensatory draft picks awarded to make up for free agent losses from 2018 on Friday, and the Pittsburgh Steelers were once left out in the cold.

A total of 15 teams will have at least one extra selection in the 2019 NFL Draft, with the New England Patriots, Arizona Cardinals and Washington Redskins leading the league with four additional picks each.

It had always been expected that Pittsburgh would miss out on a compensatory draft pick for the second straight year having signed more significant free agents than they lost last season. While the Steelers saw Chris Hubbard sign a deal with Cleveland Browns worth an average of $7.3 million, the additions of Morgan Burnett and Jon Bostic were effectively enough to cancel out his departure.

With Burnett signing a deal worth an average of over $4.73 million and Bostic agreeing to terms on contract averaging $2 million, it only took a couple of mid-levels signings to offset the loss of Hubbard. The losses of Robert Golden and William Gay had no bearing on the allocation of compensatory draft pick as they were released by Pittsburgh, rather than seeing their contracts expire.

The last compensatory draft pick the Steelers earned was in 2017, a selection used to draft James Conner in the third-round. In past years, players like Gay, Hines Ward, Mike Vrabel and Willie Colon were drafted by Pittsburgh with compensatory picks as well.