49ers show genius in new contract with Arik Armstead

The San Francisco 49ers re-signed defensive end Arik Armstead to a lucrative five-year deal on Monday, yet the contract details again show why the team’s contracts negotiator, Paraag Marathe, is an expert here.

Instead of letting their 2019 sack leader test free agency, the San Francisco 49ers elected to re-sign defensive end Arik Armstead to a lucrative five-year deal on Monday.

The move didn’t come without some immediate setback, however, as the Niners were inevitably forced to trade 2018 Pro Bowl defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to the Indianapolis Colts shortly thereafter — an exchange which both netted San Francisco an additional first-round NFL Draft choice and freed up more than $12 million in cap space for this upcoming year.

Keeping both Armstead and Buckner around for another season was going to be a tall order. By the looks of things, Buckner was going to command more of a salary than the 49ers could have ponied up when he was due to hit free agency in 2021.

So San Francisco elected to get something worthwhile in return while it could.

As for Armstead, Vice President of Football Operations Paraag Marathe again flashed his contract-negotiating genius. With the 49ers still pressed up against the salary cap, even after trading Buckner, it was going to take some shrewd work by Marathe to re-sign Armstead.

Turns out, the contract details work heavily in the Niners’ immediate favor:

Over the last few years, the 49ers have been able to frontload many of their big contracts, which coincided with the team having a considerable amount of cap space. With this not an option in 2020, Marathe instead pushed the heavy guarantees until much later in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

With the Niners being concerned about the cap now, a $6 million hit in 2020 is pretty commendable.

And as ESPN’s Nick Wagoner pointed out, a voidable sixth year allows even more flexibility:

#49ers DL Arik Armstead's 5-year deal includes a voidable sixth year for 2025, which presumably allows them to lower cap numbers through life of contract. His first year cap number is $6 million, less than half of what Buckner's would have been had he played on 5th year option.
— Nick Wagoner (@nwagoner) March 17, 2020

There are additional incentives for San Francisco taking this approach with Armstead.

One of the biggest, stemming from the recently passed CBA agreement between the league and players union, is the proposed increase of the NFL salary cap from just under $200 million in 2020 to $240 million next year.

Simply put, the 49ers can afford Armstead’s heavier contractual loads down the stretch, as there’s an increase of roughly 20 percent from the current cap ceiling.

That’s substantial, to say the least.

Next. 3 reasons why DeForest Buckner trade benefits 49ers. dark

Granted, San Francisco is going to hope it can make up for the production ultimately lost by trading away Buckner, who has been one of the more consistent and top-performing defenders the Niners have had in recent seasons.

Yet Armstead, coming off a career season, won’t be biting the franchise contractually anytime soon.