Needing to clear cap space and with a considerable amount of resources invested in their defensive front already, the 49ers elected to release defensive tackle Arik Armstead last month. San Francisco, which selected Armstead in the first round of the 2015 draft, first offered the Oregon product the opportunity to remain with the club via a pay reduction (he was due to earn a $17.4MM salary in 2024, the final year of his contract).
Armstead declined the Niners’ proposal, and he drew interest from multiple clubs upon reaching the open market. He ultimately scored a three-year contract with the Jaguars, which was initially reported as a $51MM accord. David Lombardi of The Athletic says that the deal is actually worth $43.5MM, though it includes $28MM guaranteed at signing (subscription required).
Regardless of the contract’s maximum value, the Jags were simply prepared to pay significantly more than the 49ers to secure Armstead’s services, as Lombardi writes. In an episode of his Third and Long with Arik Armstead program on YouTube, the player himself confirms that the 49ers offered him a one-year, $6MM contract for 2024, with incentive provisions that could have pushed the total payout to $8MM. While acknowledging the difficulty of the business decisions that NFL clubs often have to make, Armstead nonetheless said he felt “extremely disrespected” by the offer.
San Francisco ultimately replaced Armstead by swinging a trade with the Texans for Maliek Collins, who comes with an $8MM base salary and $8.47MM cap charge in 2024. Per Lombardi, the team hopes to put the money saved by the Armstead release into a new contract for wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, though the latest reporting on that topic indicates that the 49ers and Aiyuk are not close on their extension talks. Aiyuk is under club control through 2024 via the fifth-year option.
In addition to Collins, the 49ers further buttressed their front seven by signing Leonard Floyd and Yetur Gross-Matos, whose modest 2024 cap numbers check in at $3.4MM and $3.2MM, respectively. While Gross-Matos, a second-round pick of the Panthers in 2020, did not live up to expectations during his four-year run in Charlotte, Niners GM John Lynch said the 26-year-old edge defender generated significant free agent interest from around the league.
“I thought (Gross-Matos’ agent) handled it like a house in Los Altos,” Lynch said (via Lombardi). “He priced it low, then he got the whole league interested and then everybody (got in on the bidding). Yetur was the guy that we signed that we had the most people in the league say, ‘Man, we were in on him.’ A lot of guys were after him.”
Lynch believes Gross-Matos has a real opportunity to thrive in San Francisco’s 4-3 alignment, which will allow the team to utilize his versatility and put him in the best position to succeed.
Frankly, I would trust the SF front office judgement much more than the Jags.
Maybe more so than the Jags I can see, but aren’t these the same guys who thought it worthy to trade up for Trey Lance and then have gone on to start Brock Purdy for the last couple of seasons? 🙂
I mean, kudos to them for admitting their mistake and moving on, but still, they wouldn’t have found themselves in that Lance – Purdy situation if they did a better job of evaluation.
The “Purdy situation” is having one of the best quarterbacks in the league on a rookie contract. Yeah they suck why would anyone want that.
Why would anyone want to miss the point of my original post… yeah, why would anyone want THAT?!
What did the 49ers trade for Trey Lance?
49ers get:
2021 first-round pick (No. 3 overall)
Dolphins get:
2021 first-round pick (No. 12 overall)
2022 first-round pick (No. 29 overall)
2022 third-round pick (No. 101 overall)
2023 first-round pick (No. 29 overall)
The picks the 49ers gave up were eventually used on:
Micah Parsons, edge rusher
Pick: 2021 first-round pick (No. 12 overall)
Team: Cowboys
Cole Strange, guard
Pick: 2022 first-round pick (No. 29 overall)
Team: Patriots
Channing Tindall, linebacker
Pick: 2022 third-round pick (No. 101 overall)
Team: Dolphins
Bryan Bresee, defensive tackle
Pick: 2023 first-round pick (No. 29 overall)
Team: Saints
Yeah, why would anyone want to understand the point of my post???…
Source: link to sportingnews.com
I LOVE the internet!!!
I understood the point of your post. It’s a repeated narrative not much originality so for you to take credit for it as your take is kind of strange.
First of all they didn’t “trade up for Lance” they traded up to take a quarterback. It was too much to trade to move up to 3 no matter who they drafted. They took Lance over Jones and Fields. You spoke of their horrible “evaluation” but Lance got hurt and the emergence of Purdy made him expendable. Which some might look at Purdy and the evaluation and development and talk about how good of a job they did there. But “I LOVE the internet” and the people who truly like to focus on the negative.
They cut bait when they realized they had their franchise QB. Even though AGAIN Lance had his development altered by injury and finding a better replacement. They then traded him for a 4th round pick. Which is more than the Bears got for Fields and Patriots got for Jones. But if they 49ers were so horrible in their evaluation then why did they get more in trade than the QB’s that were drafted AFTER Lance? Kind of pokes holes in your regurgitated narrative. They got over aggressive in their trade attempt to try to find a franchise QB. But a lot of what you said has been pretty misguided. Especially when you consider how great of a job and the track record this coach/front office regime has brought during their tenure. So maybe get a clue what you are talking about next time you want to talk down to someone about a topic you are obviously in over your head about. Or keep posting the same repeated narrative you heard someone say on sports center and embarrass yourself. Your call.
Well…that’s that, then. There is nothing more to say. Exceeeept, I wholeheartedly applaud you for setting me straight and proving why “I LOVE the internet”. Thanks to AlGore for inventing it.
I don’t disagree the Niners have been successful with their current GM-Coach combo. But no one, I mean, NO ONE thinks that wasted draft capital (3 1st round picks and a 3rd) for a guy you trade away two years later for a 4th round pick couldn’t have potentially pushed you over the top? As close as they have been – losing in 2021 in the Conference Game (rinse and repeat), losing in the Conference Game in 2022 (rinse and repeat), losing in the Super Bowl in 2023??? I mean, yeah they made it there but as that wise old man, Ricky Bobby eloquently said, “If you’re not first, you’re last”.
Maybe you’re a disgruntled Niners fan, pissed off that as close as they have been, they haven’t sealed the deal. I mean, sure they’ve gotten close but the fact still remains they haven’t won a Super Bowl since before the Dallas Cowboys last have, and that’s saying a lot!!! That’s waaaaaaaaaaay back in time when I wasn’t as stupid of an iidioit as I am now. (yes, I intentionally misspelled i-d-i-o-t, just for you).
Nice talking to you. Have a nice day. Enjoy the solar eclipse.
Nobody said that wasn’t a bad trade or wasted capital. Obviously it was sunken cost trade after they moved him to Dallas because they had their franchise QB because they are so bad at evaluating and developing quarterbacks according to you. Their “evaluation” was so bad on Lance but yet out of the 3 quarterbacks he returned the most value so maybe it wasn’t bad at evaluation as much as it was a bad QB class. That was my point but I guess reading evaluation and understanding what words mean can be tough for some people. Drafts are really easy with hindsight. I bet you were saying they should take all of those guys you listed at the time of the draft too right? Not just after with the results in front of you several years later. It’s pretty easy that way. Do you have a list of all the players the Pats should take at 3 that are going to be stars or are you wanting to wait a few years before you reveal your list?
SF has 3 division titles since 2019 w/ the same HC & GM combo. Plenty of playoff games and come close twice to winning it all twice. No one is perfect, but that’s much better track record than the Jags during the same time period.
Of course I agree, they have been quite successful but Trey Lance was a HUGE whiff on their part. It does beg the question…what could have been? That’s an awful lot of draft capital to have wasted. Could THEY have been the dynasty the Chiefs currently are instead?
Whiffs happen. SEVERAL qbs, not just Lance, were whiffs that draft. Again, they happen. Not every evaluation is gold star quality. So mentioning that the niners have missed on some evaluations gets a “DUH!” (google Jim Drunkenmiller) I get your point but don’t think that was the first bad niner eval. They lost 2 firsts, that’s why the bad eval was costly. And you pointed that out. But 31 teams fwhiffed 7 times when Purdy was drafted. Whiffs happen. Not drafting Mahomes? Again 31 teams whiffed. And 31 teams aren’t the Chiefs, and Niners are one of 31. That was your closing point and the previous sentence would have sufficed. Niners aren’t KC.
Trevor has been hair above average for the Jags. Do you dock them for drafting him?
Niners overall management has been amongst the best. Lance was a huge whiff. It’s pretty simple to understand.
Ironically, the person now in charge of Jacksonville had a similar chance to show his management skills in San Francisco. There is an opportunity for a near direct comparison if one is interested in making it.
Everyone has a podcast…
Armstead’s best year was 5 years ago – which is a career ago in NFL terms. He’s now getting old and developing an injury history, thus with that $17mil/year deal it looks like the Jags front office is continuing to do things that will keep them from becoming anything other than a fringe playoff team.
You’re right, Armstead has been missing a lot of games and not garnering many sacks, on what is a stacked defensive front. Looks like the 49ers priced his services about right in their reduced offer.
What the Jags were thinking of is a mystery to us all.
Moon Cricket!
Seems to be a bit of a mystery surrounding how Armstead got released instead of traded. The story says Houston traded Collins for him. The next thing is Armstead is signing with the Jags. Collins still ended up with the 49’rs. So what happened with the trade?