Exclusive: ‘Underappreciated’ Armstead leads 49ers surging pass rush into NFC title game
Arik Armstead hasn’t burst on to the scene. He’s been there the whole time.
“I think Arik is never fully appreciated enough,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said this week. “He’s gotten some numbers, which helps him get appreciated a little bit more, but I don’t think people realize how important Arik is to our D-line.”
The 49ers have long argued Armstead is more valuable than his sack numbers alone indicate. That he’s become a force with highlight level plays in recent weeks is not surprising to those who watch him on every down.
“The physicality that he plays with,” said Shanahan, “the fact that we can game plan him and move him to different positions to stop certain run plays. I know how much I hate dealing with him in (training) camp, running the ball at him when he is on our tight ends and then trying to have a pocket when he is pushing inside and just how tall he is with his length. So I think Arik, even when he’s not big on the stats sheet, like just watching the film and just how he affects a game to me is so huge. And that’s why I think he kind of is a little underappreciated.”
Armstead leads 49ers defense
Armstead, San Francisco’s seven-year veteran defensive tackle and Elk Grove native, has six sacks in his last three games, including two in last Saturday’s memorable playoff win over the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round.
Armstead brought down MVP candidate Aaron Rodgers on a third-down sack in the fourth quarter, the play before the blocked punt touchdown that pushed the 49ers toward one of the most iconic postseason wins in franchise history. It helped the No. 6 seed take down the top seed in the NFC, giving San Francisco a trip to Sunday’s conference championship against the Los Angeles Rams.
It’s been a long, winding road from Elk Grove to a game away from the Super Bowl.
“To see your kid grow from the 6- or 7-year-old playing at the Salvation Army, and just his overall development as a player and as a man,” Guss Armstead, Arik’s father, told The Bee. “He’s been so impactful as it relates to helping the team have success, that it obviously makes you really proud.”
Guss and his wife Christa were among the Armstead contingent in a luxury suite at Lambeau Field to see their son make arguably the biggest play of his career. With the 49ers trailing 10-3, he pushed through Green Bay’s offensive line alongside Nick Bosa to drop Rodgers for a pivotal 11-yard loss, ending the Packers’ possession. It was Armstead’s second sack of the contest, with the other coming earlier in the fourth quarter when the Packers had to settle for a field goal. Every point taken off the board was critical in the 13-10 victory.
Armstead has been in big games before. He led the 49ers in sacks during their 13-3 campaign in 2019 in which they finished the regular season with the NFC’s top seed at 13-3 and went to the Super Bowl. But the defensive line that season had more horses, with DeForest Buckner playing like one of the NFL’s top defensive tackles and Dee Ford providing burst off the edge.
The level of difficulty for the 2021-22 version of the defensive line has been higher without those two Pro Bowlers. And Armstead has stepped up his play with a strong season, highlighted by his big plays in Green Bay. Armstead and Bosa have been paramount in the 49ers recording five sacks in each of their two playoff games while the defensive line has been the backbone of the surprising playoff run.
Given the setting, the stakes and the conditions, Armstead had a feeling Saturday’s NFC title game was going to be remembered for a long time.
“I knew it was going to be a legendary game going into it. I just had that feeling,” Armstead told The Bee in a phone interview. “And you want to make plays in those type of games. Making a play like that (last sack) was super exciting, especially in the moment of bringing us closer to a win.
“That was the greatest thing about it, just the moment being with my teammates and fighting for a win in a hard-fought, close game, the conditions, everything that we were going through. So that’s the best feeling, to be able to perform in those moments and help your team win.”
Said Guss, who watched in the warmth of a suite protected from the frozen elements: “We’re in a suite with a bunch of Packer fans. But we didn’t hide our enthusiasm for the way that we felt about not only Arik but the way the team performed. It was definitely a proud-dad moment.”
Armstead’s position switch and the pass rush gaining steam
Armstead joined the 49ers as the No. 17 pick in the 2015 draft. He played as a 3-4 defensive end at the University of Oregon and the 49ers initially had him in a similar read-and-react scheme. That changed when Shanahan was hired in 2017 and brought in position coach Kris Kocurek, who prioritizes firing off the ball and attacking with as much explosiveness and ferocity as possible.
Under Kocurek, Armstead played defensive end primarily on first and second down before kicking inside to his old position of defensive tackle. There, he would rush the passer almost exclusively in obvious throwing situations.
But things changed for Armstead and the 49ers this season when 2020 first-round draft pick Javon Kinlaw was forced to have knee surgery in late October, ending his season. It required Armstead move back inside, full time, which was a significant departure from his previous responsibilities. He would play inside on both running and passing downs, and it wasn’t as familiar as his college days because Kocurek’s style was on the other side of the philosophical spectrum.
As a defensive end, Armstead was a fierce run defender, often dominating smaller tight ends. (Armstead is listed at 6-7 and 290 pounds). He found that teams would often run away from him, which is more difficult to do when he’s lined up inside.
“I feel like I really controlled, from a run-game perspective, my side of the field,” Armstead said. “And once I realized that people were just running away from me, and I could have a bigger impact moving inside, and that way I’d be closer to the action. It was a bit of an adjustment for me at first to retrain my brain and everything in my technique I had been doing from a defensive end standpoint. And I had to retrain and relearn a new position that I really haven’t practiced at all.”
The defensive line improved as the season progressed. The 49ers had 24 sacks over their first 11 games, and then 24 sacks over their final six. Armstead in those first 11 games had 27 pressures. Over the last eight, including the playoffs, he’s had 32, according to Pro Football Focus.
Much of San Francisco’s success with its pass rush can be traced to running two-man games, stunts and twists. They’re designed plays from Kocurek that are similar to setting screens in basketball, or even rushing plays on offense designed to open holes for running backs. As the season has gone on, Armstead, Bosa and the team’s pass rushers have gotten better at developing their chemistry and timing, which has manifested in more sacks.
And being effective in the system doesn’t always mean you’re the one to tackle the quarterback.
“Shoot, a successful play to me is down in, down out, run or pass, what was your effect?” Armstead said. “You could have a good play that you don’t get stats, you took up two (blockers), you freed it up for someone else. ... Effort is a big deal in our room, so the highest valued thing in our grade sheet that you can get, is a tackle downfield, which is showing great effort running down the field and making a tackle, which, in the grand scheme of things, you might not get that much recognition for.”
Dealing with criticism
At some level, many NFL players deal with unwarranted criticism. Fans and the media are often the harshest critics, unless players become super tars and dominate in ways that are easily digestable in broadcasts and highlight reels. As a defensive lineman, Armstead generally gets the most recognition when he’s getting sacks — and not for things like playing the run so well that teams are sending their rushing plays to the other side of the field.
Armstead was also saddled with the expectations of his five-year, $85 million contract he signed in 2020, coming after he posted a career high with 10 sacks in 2019. It also came as the team traded away Buckner to the Colts, deeming it couldn’t pay roughly $40 million a season for two interior pass rushers.
Armstead’s previous high in sacks before 2019 was 3.0, and he had just 3.5 in 2020 after signing the deal. Which, of course, led to direct comparisons to Buckner, who had 9.5 sacks and was named a first-team All Pro in his first campaign with Indianapolis.
Guss Armstead said Arik and his older brother, Armond, who played as USC and retired from the Patriots at 23 because of a heart condition in 2015, dealt with criticism going back to their high school days.
“They’ve always had a target on them because they’ve always been the biggest guys,” Guss Armstead said. “So regardless of what they did, people are going to find fault. I always tried to teach them: ‘Consider the critic, first of all, and just play your game and prove people wrong.’ So Arik was the number one player in the country in high school, so he’s always had this ‘He’s not that good, he should play offensive line.’”
Armstead has also become a model citizen and hero to the Sacramento community. Early in the season, he announced a $250,000 commitment with the Mercy Housing Project to bolster the Armstead Academy, aimed at helping underserved youth in the area. It was the largest of Armstead’s many charitable endeavors, which has led to him being the 49ers’ nominee for the prestigious Walter Payton Man of the Year Award for consecutive seasons.
Guss Armstead has made a career working with basketball players who end up playing in college or the pros. Developing the right mindset for athletes has always been part of his messaging to Arik, who has embraced it to become a 49ers captain and one of their better players. But it wasn’t always easy because of Arik’s contract, the comparisons to Buckner and the criticism he faced.
“I think Arik has used a lot of that as motivation,” Guss Armstead said. “And sometimes you get really frustrated and sometimes you take shots at people, and he’s done it a couple times, and I’ve done it. But I think that we have to just look past a lot of these things. Because a lot of people are not really knowledgeable about what’s going on.”
This season, the numbers suggest Armstead has been more productive than Buckner. He was Pro Football Focus’ eighth-highest-graded interior pass rusher (Buckner was 11th), he’s had 59 pressures to Buckner’s 49, and he’s had 10 sacks to Buckner’s nine, though Armstead has appeared in more games because the Colts missed the playoffs.
Of course, Armstead and Buckner remain close. They were teammates at Oregon and their friendship grew during their four seasons with the 49ers. They train together in the offseason and bounce ideas during the season, particularly when they face the same opponents.
“We’re D-linemen first, we’re all excited for each other’s success,” Armstead said.
With his 2.5 sacks in the last game against the Rams, and the 2.0 last week in Green Bay, another strong performance Sunday in the NFC title game could continue to elevate the conversation about Armstead’s value to the 49ers. And perhaps it will shine a light the idea that Armstead has been a key piece of San Francisco’s defensive line for years, not a player suddenly bursting on to the scene.
