Can't mod_rewrite /archives/

I’m trying to remove a directory from any URLS that contain it. It’s a wordpress blog.

Currently the following urls 404, and probably many others:

site.com/blog/archives/yyyy/mm/dd/
site.com/blog/archives/yyyy/mm/dd/post-title/
site.com/blog/archives/author/username

However, all of these urls work fine when they are in this format:

site.com/blog/yyyy/mm/dd/
site.com/blog/yyyy/mm/dd/post-title/
site.com/blog/author/username

So pretty much I need to take any url that has the directory /archive/ in it, regardless of what comes after it, and remove it. I’ve tried lots of example online with no luck.

The last thing I tried was this, thinking it would be a very broad rule and work.

RewriteRule (.*)/archives/(.*) $1/$2 [NC]

Didn’t do anything.

Nothing at all seems to work. I can’t seem to do anything to rewrite /archives/ to get rid of it.