The 49ers have made lots of moves through the first wave of free agency, but have they improved?
The first move they made was to ask Arik Armstead to do them a solid and accept a pay cut, which backfired considering he refused, they cut him and now he's on the Jaguars. Almost every move the 49ers have made in free agency has addressed this blunder.
Their first choice was to keep Armstead at a reduced price, because Armstead is an excellent player even though he misses a few games every season due to injury. To be fair, so does Trent Williams, and the 49ers keep him around.
So the 49ers didn't get their first choice. Instead, they had to scramble to replace Armstead with the little cap space they had. So they traded for Maliek Collins, who's a good pass rusher, but not a good run defender. They also signed Jordan Elliott, who's a good run defender, but not a good pass rusher. If you put those two together, they still wouldn't be as good as Armstead when healthy.
In addition, the 49ers signed two defensive ends -- Leonard Floyd and Yetur Gross-Matos -- who are better than the defensive ends the 49ers had last season.
They also signed De'Vondre Campbell after failing to close the deal with Eric Kendricks, which means Campbell is their second choice at linebacker. That's the extent of the 49ers additions so far.
If Armstead gets injured and misses most of next season, then absolutely the 49ers will have gotten better. But if Armstead can stay relatively healthy for Jacksonville, the 49ers just got worse.
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