Arik Armstead: 49ers going as far as revamped D-line can take us

Everyone is excited to see what adding defensive tackle Javon Hargrave can do for the San Francisco 49ers in 2023. Arik Armstead can’t wait to line up next to the team’s prized free-agent acquisition. With Nick Bosa causing havoc at one end and likely a bulked-up Drake Jackson handling the other side, the Niners’ defensive line has the potential to really frustrate opposing quarterbacks.

“Yeah, it’s going to be amazing,” Armstead said Friday on KNBR’s Papa & Lund show. “We put emphasis on that each and every year. We believe that it starts up front, and we believe that our team is going to go as far as our D-line can take us. And we truly believe that we can go out there and take over games and win them.

“So adding a guy like Javon, who’s been dominating his entire career and is a tremendous player, adding him to what we have built here and trying to take it to another level is going to be amazing to be a part of.

“And also, I think we complement each other very well. I think it’s going to be very tough for offensive linemen to prepare for all of us, all the different looks that we’re giving at guys. We added some new brothers to our D-line this year, so we’re going to come at them in waves and throw different looks and throw different guys and rotate, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Bolstering the defensive line was an offseason priority for the 49ers. After last season, the team reviewed all the position groups to determine where they needed the most help.

“And the thing we kept coming back to is, on the defensive line, albeit the number one defense in football, played really good defensive football, it was outstanding, but we felt like we had lost a little bit of our dominance on the D-line,” general manager John Lynch said a couple of weeks ago during the 49ers State of the Franchise event. “When you think back to 2019, and when you were playing the Niners, you knew you were not going to have a lot of time to throw the ball. On the run game, you were going to have people penetrating. And we felt like, despite playing such good defense, we had maybe fallen off a little.”

Armstead and Hargrave are very different types of players. At 6-foot-7, Armstead towers over his teammates but weighs in at under 300 pounds. Hargrave is a bulkier specimen at 6-foot-2 and over 300 pounds, making him a handful for offensive linemen. Their styles of play differ as well.

The ninth-year veteran sees those differences as a significant advantage.

“I think that’s going to be great,” Armstead said. “Guards and centers, especially having to prepare for two different body types and two different styles of play, is going to be tough to kind of switch down in and down out, kind of your mentality and your mindset of who you’re going against.”

You can listen to the entire conversation with Armstead below.

Listen: Click here to listen on Omny.fm