In one embodiment, cells of a same packet are sent among multiple paths within a packet switching device. Each of these cells is associated with a same drop value for use in determining whether to drop or forward the cell at multiple positions within a packet switching fabric of a packet switching device in light of a current congestion measurement. In one embodiment, the drop value is calculated at each of these multiple positions based on fields of the cell that are packet variant, but not cell variant, so a same drop value is calculated by each cell of a packet. In one embodiment, at least one of these fields provides entropy (e.g., a timestamp of the packet) such that a produced drop value has, or approximately has, an equal probability of being any value within a predetermined range for fairness purposes.