Making sense of the Kaepernick “de-escalators”

The initial, embellished report of Colin Kaepernick’s new contract indicated that the deal was worth “up to” $126 million.  As we now know, $12 million of the money to be earned by Kaepernick comes from so-called de-escalators — money in the contract that will go away if he fails to do certain things. Based on…