APBears cornerback Tim Jennings bet on himself and won when he signed a two-year contract with the team last year.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Jennings’ contract contained a clause that bumped his 2013 salary up by $1 million if he met certain incentives in 2012. Jennings achieved those benchmarks and now his 2013 salary is $4.25 million. The contract Jennings signed also included some de-escalators that could have reduced his base salary for 2013 by as much as $1.6 million.
In other words, Jennings agreed to a two-year deal that would pay him a lot in the second year if he played well in the first, and wouldn’t pay him much in the second year if he didn’t play well in the first.
For Jennings, who led the league with nine interceptions, that turned out to be a wise move. And for the Bears, a $4.25 million salary is more than they were expecting to pay Jennings in 2013 — but a salary they’ll gladly pay if he plays as well this year as he did last year.
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He really stepped up this season and I do like his approach.
“Let my game to the talking” couldn’t be implemented better than this.
He earned it. I’ve liked him in Chicago since day 1.
All contracts should be like this.
sloppychimps says:
Feb 10, 2013 5:59 PM
He earned it. I’ve liked him in Chicago since day
No you did not. Bears fans were complaining about him since day one. Do not jump on the bandwagon now.
I’m glad to read $ is more important to him than post season play!
Play to earn. Would like to see more contracts done this way. Guy had a great year and that’s cheap considering top cb’s are asking 8-10m/year
I wish Al could have done this with JaBustis……..
@golforpar
Where does it say anything like that in this article. Takes some real hate to turn a guy-earns-a-raise-with-hard- work story into something negative
Well he certainly earned it. I was pretty pissed he went largely unchallenged for the starting spot last offseason. They picked up 2 bum CBs in the 6th and 7th rounds (neither of whom are still on the team) and a free agent who was only signed for the sake of depth.
I do believe his interception numbers will come back into the atmosphere this year, but I saw enough in him to believe that he was more than just lucky and has legitimately established himself as one of the better corners in the league.
Hanging out with Lovie and Charles Tillman for a few years tends to do that to a guy
Who wouldnt work hard for a year for an “extra mil”?
it would be interesting to see exactly what earned him the extra mill.
Also, its funny when you put pay for performance into contracts its totally legal, but do it without the NFLs consent and it gets turned into a bounty scandal.
This is the kind of player you offer a three year six mil deal to. Tempt him with more dollars now for more years during his prime.
’bout time a contract worked out right, for both sides.
That is awesome… way to go Jennings.
Incentives should be in all contracts.
It sure would be nice if more contracts were set up this way. the only issue being some offensive guys numbers would be crap behind a junk o-line. I guess you could throw in that peppers and the d-line probably contributed to some errant passes by opposing qb though.
somewhere Brandon Jacobs is driving his fastass car and saying,” I didnt get no touches so I got busted. Broke and doing Shark Tank.But I can hock my SB Giant rings for $$$$ and drive my fastass car.
Incentives are already in a lot (if not all) contracts via the Likely to be earned and not likely to be earned language. Whilst it’s great for Jennings that this deal worked out theres no way you can build a team solely on these type of deals because if you have one good year and everyone gets extra money then you have to cut everyone as you’ll blow the cap + do you really want a scenario where people are trying to steal stats from each other (tackles/sacks) in order to get paid?
Pay for performance! Goodell suspend him ASAP!