Contract incentives add a layer to a sneaky Bears training camp battle

Amid all the moves the Chicago Bears made this offseason, from the hiring of Ben Johnson as head coach all the way to additions made in the draft, some smaller moves naturally slipped through the cracks.

One such move was signing veteran wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus to a one-year, $1.5 million deal. The Bears will be his fourth team in as many seasons, and with the Washington Commanders last season he set career-highs for catches (45) and yards (506).

Coming out of minicamp and looking toward training camp, with rookie wide receiver Luther Burden having missed everything since rookie minicamp due to a soft tissue injury, Clay Harbor of CHSN suggested Zaccheaus is a serious candidate win a competition to be Bears' No. 3 wide receiver.

"This is a bigger competition than people think...You can trust him, but he’s extremely quick", Harbor said, of Zaccheaus. "You’re obviously going to have a number of packages for Luther Burden — but I think after watching Zaccheaus, he has a number of packages for himself, as well. He’s extremely quick. He’s a good blocker. He’s catching everything. He’s just this guy that’s crafty, quick, will do whatever you want him to do to help the team win the game. Like, dirty stuff, but also, you saw him get 500 yards last year, 45 catches with the team that made the NFC Championship Game. That counts for something.”

Contract incentives fortify Olamide Zaccheaus' motivation to win Bears' WR3 job

As a dictionary definition of a WR3/WR4 throughout his, Zaccheaus spends a good share of his time as blocker. In Ben Johnson's Detroit Lions' offense, the wide receiver group adopted a "no block, no rock" mentality, meaning they had to be willing to do the dirty work as a blocker if they also wanted to see targets.

According to Spotrac, Zaccheaus has can earn a cumulative total of $125,000 based just on the percentage of the Bears' offensive snaps he plays this season ($62,500 each for playing 45 and 65 percent of the offensive snaps). If the Bears make the playoffs and he reaches those thresholds, the incentives double.

To break it down more simply, Zaccheaus could make a total $250,000 in incentives if he plays 65 percent of the offensive snaps and the Bears make the playoffs. That's a high-end and fairly unlikely outcome, all things considered, but it's also nothing to sneeze at if it happens.

Zaccheaus has played all 17 games in four straight seasons, with offensive snap shares of 58 and 70 percent with the Atlanta Falcons in 2021 and 2022. He played 41 percent of the offensive snaps for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2023, and 43 percent of the offensive snaps for Washington last year.

Injuries, etc. shifted the wide receiver pecking order over Johnson's first two years as Detroit's offensive coordinator, so 2024 is our easiest frame of reference for how much the No. 3 wide receiver was on the field. Tim Patrick had just shy of a 56 percent snap share last year, with one missed game (59 percent snap share over the 16 games he played).

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Zaccheaus' $1.2 million base salary is just above the veteran's minimum for someone with his years of experience. If he wins the No. 3 wide receiver job in training camp and holds the role all season, the latter of which is an obvious question due to Burden's presence, he could add a roughly five percent boost to his pay just by playing 45 percent of the offensive snaps.