As the draft gets closer and closer, more and more things start to unfold for the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers, in particular.

On today's agenda is compensatory selections.

What is a compensatory selection you might ask?

Compensatory picks are extra picks in the NFL Draft, awarded to teams by the NFL for losing free agents or if another team hires away a minority employee as its head coach or general manager.

As we all know, the 49ers lost DeMeco Ryans to the Houston Texans, Mike McDaniel to the Miami Dolphins, as well as Ran Carthon to the Tennessee Titans. 

It appears the 49ers are getting rewarded for the loss of Robert Saleh and Martin Mayhew, as well.

Said reward comes in the form of six additional picks in the NFL Draft. The key part, however, is the 49ers will walk away with three extra third-round picks due to the aforementioned departures of Ryans, Carthon, and Saleh/Mayhew.

Third-round picks are very valuable in the NFL. There are plenty of players picked in the third that go on and have very successful careers in the NFL. Russell Wilson, Travis Kelce, Ronde Barber, and 49ers GM John Lynch himself are all former third-round picks, for instance.

Two of those players are Hall of Famers. At least one of them in Kelce will be, too.

In other words: Thursday's news is a big deal for the 49ers.

The full list of compensatory picks can be found here.