The 49ers Wrote A Kick-Return Bonus Into Deebo Samuel's Contract

This notebook did not run Monday or Tuesday, so anything below that you already know is new here, and that is the site's problem rather than yours. San Francisco did not practice Tuesday. The club's Week 3 schedule puts the players off for the day and the next session at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, so what the day produced was a contract rather than a depth chart. The practice observations below are Monday's, and they come from the club's own Day 6 recap, from Marc Adams and David Bonilla at 49ers Webzone, and from Nick Wagoner of ESPN and Matt Barrows of The Athletic as those two Webzone writers relay them. Nobody from this site was at any of it.

The seven million dollars is a ceiling, and it is the sum of everything going right. Matt Maiocco reported the structure of Deebo Samuel's one-year deal on Tuesday, and Spotrac's contract page carries the same terms line for line. The money that is real: a base salary of $3,270,000, a signing bonus of $490,000, and $20,000 for every game he is active, which is $340,000 across seventeen. That totals $4,100,000, and $3,760,000 of it is guaranteed. The rest is incentives, and they are worth $2,900,000 only if he clears every tier of every one of them and the 49ers make the playoffs. Four-point-one plus two-point-nine is seven. The figure that has been relayed all week without a structure attached is not what this contract is worth. It is what it pays if nothing goes wrong.

Four of the five incentives double with a playoff berth. At their top tiers: $450,000 for 803 or more yards from scrimmage, $450,000 for seven or more touchdowns, $250,000 for a top-ten kick return average, and $250,000 for taking 68 percent of the offensive snaps. A Pro Bowl selection off the initial ballot is worth $100,000 and does not double. Maiocco has the kick-return incentive carrying a minimum of twenty returns, which Spotrac's summary does not list.

Two of those triggers describe a job nobody has publicly assigned him. Sixty-eight percent of the offensive snaps is a starter's workload for a receiver who signed on August 1 and has taken two practices since. The kick-return threshold is stranger still, because the club's own Monday recap frames the open return competition as a punt-return job and names four other men in it: Jacob Cowing, Jordan Watkins, Junior Bergen and Will Pauling. Brant Boyer, on Samuel, the same afternoon: "He's a difference maker. He's a hell of a player, really tough to tackle, and he's got speed to take it to the house." This site's August 1 notebook has Jennifer Lee Chan describing Samuel taking a turn returning kicks in his first practice back. The contract was agreed before he took a snap here, and it remains the most specific published statement of what San Francisco expects from him.

Two reporters have different numbers for Brock Purdy's Monday. Adams relays Wagoner at 14 of 21 in team periods, with the note that there was not much going on downfield. Bonilla relays Barrows at 15 of 21, and Barrows also has Mac Jones at 8 of 10. One completion apart, and this notebook is not going to adjudicate it. Kyle Juszczyk caught three passes from Purdy, which is the club's own count, and said afterward he expects to line up on the line of scrimmage more often while George Kittle finishes his Achilles rehab.

The injury round-up runs to eleven names, and the club took Tuesday off anyway. Bonilla's Tuesday list carries Kaelon Black (adductor), Mike Evans (quad), Gracen Halton (knee), Jordan James (rib), Jack Jones (soreness), Christian Kirk (calf), Vederian Lowe (high ankle), Malik Mustapha (hamstring), Cameron Sample (knee), De'Zhaun Stribling (hamstring) and Keion White (adductor). The club's own Monday list is shorter and carries neither Jones nor White, so those two are Bonilla's alone. Five more sit on the club's own lists, counted off its roster page Wednesday morning: Isaac Guerendo, George Kittle and Mykel Williams on Active/PUP, Darrick Forrest and Ricky Pearsall on Reserve/Injured.

Mikail Kamara's knee has a diagnosis and it is a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Bonilla reported it Monday and repeated it Tuesday, and it is the first medical fact anyone has attached to the cart that took him off the field on August 1. The club named a body part and nothing else when it waived him with an injury designation. Bonilla also has him reverting to injured reserve, which the club's roster page did not reflect when I counted it at 5:44 a.m. Wednesday: the Reserve/Injured table holds two names, Darrick Forrest and Pearsall, and Kamara is in none of the four tables.

No transaction has been announced since Sunday, and the count is exactly at the limit. The club's last release was the August 2 one that signed Khalil Herbert and Titus Leo, waived Eli Apple and waived Mikail Kamara with an injury designation. Nothing since, on the club's newsroom or in three days of 49ers Webzone filings. Counted in a browser Wednesday morning, the roster page reads 88 active plus three on Active/PUP, which is 91 names, less Isaac Alarcon's league exemption, which is 90 against a ceiling of 90. San Francisco has not been over the limit at any point, and the next arrival still costs somebody a job.

Two defensive linemen came back and two receivers worked on the side. C.J. West and Romello Height returned to 11-on-11 on Monday, both for the first time since August 1. Stribling ran at full speed on a side field and Kirk at roughly three-quarters, per Adams, and neither took part in practice. Khalil Herbert took team reps a day after signing, mixed in with Christian McCaffrey, Patrick Taylor Jr. and Sincere McCormick while Black sat.

The defense had the better day. Ji'Ayir Brown broke up a pass in the red zone, rookie defensive back Ephesians Prysock won a contested ball over Bergen in an 11-on-11 period, and Renardo Green dominated his one-on-ones, per OurSF49ers by way of Adams.

Stribling's grade drops a point on the 53-man tracker today, under a trigger this board set on August 1 and is not going to reinterpret now that it has fired. Everything else holds.

Sources. Matt Maiocco, NBC Sports Bay Area, August 4, for the contract terms and the twenty-return minimum. Spotrac's Deebo Samuel contract page, read in a browser August 5, for the same terms independently, the cap figures and the maximum value. The 49ers' own Day 6 recap, 49ers.com, published August 3 at 3:40 p.m., for the injury list, the Boyer quotes and the returner and punter competitions, the Juszczyk catches and quote, the Herbert reps, and the Brown and Prysock plays. Marc Adams, 49ers Webzone, August 3, for Wagoner's completion line, the side-field work and the Green observation he attributes to OurSF49ers. David Bonilla, 49ers Webzone, August 3 and August 4, for Barrows' completion lines, the Kamara diagnosis and the injury round-up. The Week 3 practice schedule per 49ers Webzone, August 4, off the club's media schedule. The roster count is this site's own, measured in a browser at 5:44 a.m. Pacific on August 5. Chan's August 1 observation is carried from this site's own notebook of that date.