Arik Armstead reveals contract offer that left him feeling extremely disrespected by San Francisco 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers parting with their longest-tenured player, Arik Armstead, was one of the more surprising developments of the free agency period, and the now Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle has lifted the lid on why his departure came to pass.

Armstead was released by the 49ers with a post June-1 designation after the two parties failed to come to terms on a restructure.

The 2015 first-round pick refused to take a significant pay cut and, speaking on his podcast 'Third and Long' revealed the exact terms of the offer that left him feeling "extremely disrespected".

A disrespectful offer

In the final year of his 49ers contract, Armstead was due to earn a base salary of $17.41 million and carry a cap hit of $28.35 million, the second largest in the league for defensive tackles. 

That was far too high for a 49ers team with a plethora of highly paid stars on the roster to countenance but, in Armstead's mind, the restructure they offered went too far the other way. As a result, Armstead asked for and was granted his release and went on to sign a three-year, $43.5 million contract with the Jaguars with $28 million guaranteed.

Armstead said: "I knew that I have a high cap hit going into the year, we have a bunch of amazing players on our team that deserve to get paid, so I knew that there was going to be extension talks or restructure or whatever to help the team in terms of the cap because we’re going to try make another run at this at the Super Bowl.

"I was fully aware and expecting that and I was trying to have those conversations. As the offseason progressed, they did notify me that they wanted to extend me, they wanted me to be a Niner for life, remain on the team, but they didn’t say what number that extension would be at.

"Finally they told me that I was going to have to take a significant pay cut. They extended an offer to me of $6 million for a one-year deal with incentives to go up to like eight and, when they sent that over, I did feel extremely disrespected. 

"That level of compensation is nowhere near the type of player I am, not even just the type of player that I am, what I have committed to the game, what I have committed to my team, what I have committed to the organization and my community, I didn’t feel like it was representative of who I am as a player and as a person.

"I had to bet on myself. I asked for my release, I gave the opportunity for the Niners to come up on their offer, but I had to see what else was out there. I had to see if other teams thought if I was the player that I know I am and value that."

The injury impact

Armstead revealed he set out at the start of the season hoping to earn a third contract and had a four-year, and $80 million deal as his goal. He felt he was on course to earn such a deal until Week 13, when he suffered a torn meniscus in the 49ers' blowout win over the Philadelphia Eagles, forcing him to miss the final five games of the regular season.

He then played through that injury, as well as a foot problem, in the postseason, with his 16 pressures, per Pro Football Focus, tied for the most in the playoffs with Chris Jones. Armstead had seven pressures and a sack in the Super Bowl defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs, which he believed marked the best game of his career.

It's no surprise then, that Armstead found the 49ers' offer to be derisory. However, speaking at the NFL annual meetings this week, general manager John Lynch pointed to Armstead's injury issues — he played only nine games because of plantar fasciitis in 2022 — as a big factor in their decision to part with the 30-year-old and replace him in part through a trade with the Houston Texans for Maliek Collins, who is only 28.

Lynch told reporters: 

"We just made a decision, and part of it was that he had missed some games. That happens, but at his number, we had to adjust it. We made that trade for Maliek Collins, and so we wish Arik nothing but the best. Those are tough decisions. Arik has done so much for our team, he's such a fabric of who we are as a team, the work he does in the community, the opportunity for him to be up on that 10-year wall, that was important to me, it was important to our organization and it was important to Arik, but ultimately he chose to bet on himself, and I think he made a good call, because his market was there. Happy for him and his family, and always will be grateful for everything he has given us."

The saving grace following a disappointing end to Armstead's time with the team is that there is no hard feelings on either side.

Armstead, who revealed he felt at the start of last season there was a chance he could play his way out of San Francisco given the number of highly-paid stars, said: "I don’t have any animosity towards the organization, Kyle [Shanahan], John, the York family. 

"I have a lot of respect and admiration for them and my time with them and even with this situation it’s not on me to decide how they want to build their team and who they want to pay and how they want to build their roster. That’s not my decision."

Both Armstead's desire to bet on himself and the 49ers' decision to save cap space are understandable. Still, Armstead deserved a better ending with the team, and a parting that makes sense on both sides would have surely have been much smoother had the Niners finished the job in Las Vegas last month.