If you want to read all of the knitty gritty details, take a look at Pro Football Talk's breakdown of this smoke & mirrors contract. Since reading is hard, I will try to illustrate how stupidly ESPN perpetuates non-guaranteed totals claiming that the entire amount is guaranteed. While Colin Kaepernick is now 4 times wealthier today than he was after his first 3 years with 49ers, the 49ers definitely got the much better end of this deal. The Baltimore Ravens social media team, who have had a terrible last couple weeks, just tweeted out this breakdown in a misguided attempt to defend the horrible contract they handed Joe Flacco after Rahim Moore, in typical Bruin fashion, forgot to do his only job.
These numbers would be all well and good, if they were at all based in reality. I'm assuming the 49ers sat him down with a breakdown similar to this in order to get him to sign on the dotted line. In reality, the 49ers now have Kaepernick under control for the next 7 years for a little more than $13 million guaranteed, not $61 million. The 49ers were able to fluff up his total numbers by including all of his incentives in the total contract number, meaning that $126 million is actually going to be much, much less. Instead of simply having good play and health incentives paid out as he goes, his ego needed the "highest paid" moniker so much that now we are looking into how unlikely it is he actually hits $126 million. These dis-incentives, also known as de-escalators, include a mandatory 80% of the snaps taken AND either a Super Bowl appearance or All-Pro season (each season). That's a very tall order no matter who the quarterback is. When these incentives are inevitably not met, he will lose $2 million cumulatively each season.
BUT WAIT, There's more - The 49ers only guaranteed the base salaries of 2014-2018 for injury only. On April 1 of each year, the guarantees convert from injury only to fully guaranteed. That gives the 49ers the ability to decide, in any given year, to move on from Kaepernick. And with the deadline for the conversion of the guarantee coming on April 1, the 49ers can squat on his rights until several weeks after the start of free agency, making it harder for him to get paid elsewhere. The contract also includes, starting in 2015, a whopping $2 million per year in per-game roster bonuses, an amount that one source characterized as “massive” in comparison to similar deals. It means that, for every game Kaepernick misses due to injury after the 2014 season, he loses $125,000.
And then the kicker for me, as if the 49ers did not already have enough injury protection built into this organization-friendly contract, is that the contract also requires Kaepernick to purchase, with after-tax dollars, a disability policy that pays the 49ers $20 million if he suffers a career-ending injury. Now please take a look at the truly guaranteed salaries and tell me who got the better end of this deal. Kaepernick still can't beat the Seahawks, but the Seahawks should be praying day & night Russell Wilson will sign a similarly un-guaranteed, incentive-laden contract. Don't hold your breath.
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