Arik Armstead sets the record straight on rookie dinner confusion
Dec 20, 2022, 10:00 AM
SANTA CLARA, CA - DECEMBER 11: Arik Armstead #91 of the San Francisco 49ers warms up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Levi's Stadium on December 11, 2022 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
(Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
After a weekend of confusion, San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Arik Armstead finally set the record straight on the rookie dinner bill.
A video of the 49ers’ rookie dinner went viral over the weekend after many speculated that the youngsters would have fork over 300 thousand-plus dollars at a lavish restaurant in San Francisco. Second-round pick defensive Drake Jackson shared a video of the bill to his Instagram story, an eating spree that totaled to $322,391.05.
Or so we thought.
The 49ers' rookie dinner bill 😅😂
[via @The99Athlete] pic.twitter.com/k7edE6QONT
— 49ers on NBCS (@NBCS49ers) December 18, 2022
Wanting to set the record straight, Armstead took to social media Monday night, explaining on his Twitter that the receipt was a practical joke, orchestrated by the vets and their waitress at the restaurant.
Y’all silly if you thought a dinner can cost 300k . It was a prank. The waitress went overboard . The dinner was 7500 me and 2 other vets gave 1k towards it . The rooks split 4500. We had a great time too. I had good vets as a young player I would never do a rookie like that .
— Arik Armstead (@arikarmstead) December 20, 2022
“Y’all silly if you thought a dinner can cost 300k,” the Sacramento native tweeted. “It was a prank. The waitress went overboard. The dinner was 7500 me and 2 other vets gave 1k towards it. The rooks split 4500. We had a great time too. I had good vets as a young player I would never do a rookie like that.”
The rookie dinner is a tradition that occurs annually, where the team’s rookie players front the money for an expensive meal at a lavish place. Known for being extravagant yes, but the bill is usually in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
Despite playing in the NFL, a bill over $300,000 would have been a pretty penny for these young athletes to spend on one meal. The 49ers don’t have any first-round draft picks this year amongst their 15 rookies, making it even more unlikely that they could pay that much money all at once. Jackson himself is the highest-paid rook on the team, making more than a million dollars in his first year in the league.
His reaction said it all.
The 49ers made Rookie Drake Jackson pay the dinner bill totaling $322,391.05 😳💰pic.twitter.com/m430zN2cas
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) December 20, 2022
Thankfully for them, it was just a bit of hijinks from the veterans at the table, getting a couple laughs out before helping pay for the dinner that actually totaled to $7500.
