It seemed like the Miami Dolphins had gotten some terrific news regarding their 2025 NFL Draft when the league announced the Dolphins had gotten four compensatory picks on Wednesday, the most allowed under league rules.

That is, until the league had a “whoops, my bad’ moment on Friday.

Per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the NFL Management Council announced to teams on Friday that the 2025 compensatory picks were changing based on a recalculation.  That resulted in the Dolphins being docked one of their seventh-round compensatory picks, which went to the Saints instead.

The Dolphins had picked up a seventh-round compensatory pick for the loss of Cedric Wilson, Jr. in free agency.  However, after second thought, the league decided somehow that he didn’t qualify, per Over The Cap’s Nick Korte.

It’s not a huge hit to the Dolphins – Miami now has 10 picks instead of 11 and is stripped of one of the last picks in the draft – but it’s one that doesn’t make much sense. One would think these things are determined and then re-checked and confirmed before being disclosed to the teams and announced publicly.  Why the backtrack now?  It’s a bad look and doesn’t give much certainty to or confidence in the process.

Fortunately, the Dolphins have their third-round compensatory pick for the loss of Robert Hunt and the fourth rounder for the loss of Christian Wilkins.  With their contract values and Hunt’s playing time in Carolina, those would have been tough to move around.

Although, with the league’s confusing compensatory pick formula and their own apparent uncertainty, who knows?