Saints RB Alvin Kamara: 'We'd Beat the S--- Out of' the Eagles in the NFC Championship
The New Orleans Saints were just seconds away from reaching the NFC Championship Game when Case Keenum and Stefon Diggs of the Minnesota Vikings connected on one of the most ridiculous plays in NFL history to steal a win and move one step closer to Super Bowl LII, which was hosted in Minnesota.
New Orleans running back Alvin Kamara told Master Tesfatsion of Bleacher Report that he was able to get over his team's loss to the Vikings pretty fast, but seeing Minnesota's performance in the NFC Championship was frustrating. In the week following what was dubbed the "Minnesota Miracle," the Vikings found themselves living in a nightmare as the Philadelphia Eagles rattled off 38 unanswered points in a 38-7 victory to earn a trip to the Super Bowl.
Kamara added that had the Saints held on in the final seconds against the Vikings after erasing a 17-point halftime deficit, they would have defeated the Eagles and potentially won Super Bowl LII. After beating Minnesota, Philadelphia went on to capture its first Super Bowl in franchise history by beating the New England Patriots 41-33 in the first game in Minnesota since the Saints saw their season come to an abrupt end.
From Tesfatsion:
"We'd beat the s--- out of [the Eagles] cause we was rolling," Kamara says. "If we won [versus Minnesota], I knew nobody was gonna stop us cause we came all the way back."
The conversation gets Kamara excited for the upcoming season. He described 2017 as an "experiment" year for the Saints, and he believes everyone in the locker room knows what they are capable of accomplishing in 2018.
"We know what the standard is," Kamara says before pausing for a few seconds. "So, yeah, f--- Minnesota."
The transitive property is not the best logic to apply to sports, but it does seem a bit bold to claim New Orleans would beat the Eagles in as convincing a fashion as Kamara implied considering the Vikings eliminated the Saints in a close game and then went on to get handed their worst loss of the season by the eventual Super Bowl champions.
To be fair to Kamara though, the last time Philadelphia made the playoffs before last season was the 2013 season, when the Saints came into Philadelphia and defeated Nick Foles and the Eagles in a wild card game. Whether or not New Orleans would have defeated last year's Eagles though will never be determined.
The Saints enter this season looking to reach the NFC Championship for the first time since they won their first and only Super Bowl in the 2009 season. The team will be looking to build off an 11-5 season in which it won the NFC South.
Kamara will be looking to improve upon a rookie year that saw him earn a Pro Bowl nod and win AP Offensive Rookie of the Year after rushing for 728 yards and eight touchdowns while also catching 81 passes for 826 yards and five scores.
