Skip to main content
Saints News Network

Saints RB Alvin Kamara: Will No. 21 Player in 2026 Be Here in September?

The nine-year vet could be one heck of an RB2 if he remains in Black and Gold, as we rank the team's Top 25 players of 2026
Jim Derry|
New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara will turn 31 on July 25, just as the team is beginning what would be his 10th NFL training camp.
New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara will turn 31 on July 25, just as the team is beginning what would be his 10th NFL training camp. | Tim Heitman-Imagn Images

In this story:

New Orleans Saints

For the first nine years of his career with the New Orleans Saints it would be impossible to fathom running back Alvin Kamara being anything but the No. 1, No. 2 or maybe No. 3 most important player on his football team.

Times sure have changed, my friends.

In March, the Saints worked a four-year, $48 million contract for the services of 27-year-old Travis Etienne, a former Jacksonville Jaguars running back who is not even four years younger than Kamara, but his five years less tread on his tires.

And in the life and times of an NFL running back, tread is almost everything.

As great as Kamara has been to the Saints – he is the team’s all-time leading rusher and fifth-leading receiver – his age-30 season was a major disappointment. That wouldn’t seem to be a big deal, considering 6-11 is nothing to get excited about, but the second half of the season that featured rookie quarterback Tyler Shough’s ascent up the Who Dat love chart has clearly changed the thought process at 5800 Airline Drive.

So yes, even if you are the best running back in the history of a franchise, and until last season you never had fewer than 1,150 total yards of offense in any given season, the question is the same as with everything else in life: “What have you done for me lately?”

As in yesterday. Or last month.

And before we head into next month, when the Saints will open training camp No. 60 with more hope than they have had in at least the past five seasons since you-know-who rode off into the proverbial football sunset, we offer hypothetical reasons why Kamara remains important to this football team, even if it is in a much diminished capacity.

With that, here are our thoughts on the No. 21 player of 2026:

Please share your thoughts on our Top 25 Saints Heading Into 2026 by emailing the Saints On SI Publisher and Beat Writer Jim Derry at jim@jimderry.com.

Why is Kamara so important?

If he were to even have 10 touches per game at anywhere near his career average of 5.35, then you don’t need to be a math genius to figure out that’s 910 yards for a season. (Of course, that’s assuming he plays 17 games, which he’s never done.)

But even at 750 yards and five or six touchdowns would be quite a help to Etienne, who had just shy of a whopping 300 touches of his own in his last season in Jacksonville.

While there are other candidates to come and help both Etienne and (potentially) Kamara, such as Kendre Miller, who has the ability to be an RB2, but not the health as of yet, and last year’s sixth-round pick Devin Neal. Oh, and free-agent pickup Audric Estimé had a fantastic last couple of games in 2025 that has some Saints fans thinking he could be part of future plans.

In other words, for the first time in a bit, the running back cupboard is far from bare entering the last half of OTAs.

But to have a veteran like Kamara, even if he isn’t the Kamara of former days, would be quite a boost to fairly young room.

Question is: Would he be willing to take a pay cut to become second fiddle in that RB room? Do the Saints even want him here? (They haven’t shown much of an indication they do.)

In other words, we travel on in this assessment not even knowing if Kamara will be here on Sept. 13, 2026, when the Saints take on the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.

Kamara’s strengths and weaknesses

We’re not going to spend a ton of time talking about Kamara’s strengths. He clearly has been one of the NFL’s top running backs over the course of the past decade or so and certainly outpaced just about any other third-round pick from the 2017 draft – yes, even more than Cooper Kupp, Chris Godwin, Trey Hendrickson and James Conner. (That was one hell of a third round!)

Kamara is third in the league in yards from scrimmage the past nine seasons, behind only Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey.

Throughout his career, he has had the ability to use power, speed and shiftiness. He can run between the tackles or catch a screen pass and take it around the edge for long distances.

However, that last sentence? He hasn’t done that nearly as much the past few years. In fact, he has two receptions of more than 30 yards the past three seasons and not a single carry for longer than 24 yards since 2022.

The tough part is there really is little reason to think he’ll be able to bust long ones now, so if the Saints would be getting last year’s Kamara – 131 carries for 471 yards and 33 catches for 186 yards with one total touchdown – is that enough to keep him around and take touches from younger backs?

Also, in the weaknesses department, Kamara has never been able to remain healthy for a full season. He’s only played in more than 14 games once since 2020. He missed the final six games last season and missed four games in 2023.

Recent season stats

We told you last year’s numbers, but 2024 was quite a rebound from 2023, and that was with a rookie fifth-round quarterback in Spencer Rattler for half the season and a makeshift (putting it nicely) offensive line.

He finished that year with a career-high 950 yards rushing, and he added 543 receiving yards with eight total touchdowns.

How big an anomaly was last season’s 186 yards receiving? He hadn’t had fewer that 439 in any previous years. If certainly will be interesting if Kellen Moore would go back to involving Kamara in the screen game in a potential return.

Background

Kamara was born July 25, 1995, in Atlanta and went to Norcross High School, where he led the Blue Devils to their first state championship in his senior season. He was named Georgia’s Mr. Football by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2012 and was the state Class 6A Player of the Year.

He was the nation’s top recruit, according to 247 Sports and ranked second by On3. He originally committed to Alabama, but redshirted with a knee injury and played one season at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas before heading to Tennessee for his sophomore and junior seasons.

In two seasons with the Volunteers, he played in 24 games and collected 1,977 yards with 23 touchdowns.

Kamara’s parents are Liberian, and his maternal grandmother lives in Loberia, where he has visited as recently as a couple years ago. He has a daughter and a newborn son.

The rest of the Top 25 so far …

25, RET Barion Brown, June 2

24, DE Bryan Bresee, June 3

23, DT Davon Godchaux, June 4

22, S Jonas Sanker, June 5

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

Published
Jim Derry
JIM DERRY

Jim Derry is the Publisher / Beat Writer for New Orleans Saints On SI and has hosted the Dattitude Podcast since September 2021. He is a native New Orleanian and previously worked for The Times-Picayune for 35 years, working several jobs in the news room, including covering the Saints, the NFL and sports betting. Jim also is a play-by-play broadcaster for Varsity Sports Now Louisiana, calling local high school and college games. Email: jim@jimderry.com. X: @JimDerryJr.

Share on XFollow jimderryjr
Home/Saints News