2020 is a huge year for New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara if he wants to stay in New Orleans. A fan favorite in NOLA, Kamara’s stock is trending downward after a disappointing 2019 campaign in which the former Tenessee Volunteer standout was hampered with lingering ankle and knee issues.
Kamara is also fighting against the running backs trend in the NFL heading into the final year of his rookie deal. A third-round pick in the 2017 draft, Kamara dazzled his first two seasons at the Superdome. He formed the “Boom and Zoom,” partnership with Saints veteran Mark Ingram to become the best running back tandem in the league before the latter back left for the Baltimore Ravens in 2019.
Will Alvin Kamara Remain With the New Orleans Saints Past the 2020 Season?
Kamara quickly established himself as one of the more elusive running backs in the league his rookie year but became even more renowned for his polished route-running and all-around receiving skills out of the backfield. Proving a nightmare mismatch for opposing defenses to handle, he has racked up 81 receptions each of his first three seasons in the league. It included 10 total touchdowns through the air.
Catching footballs from future Hall of Famer Drew Brees is sure to help anyone’s numbers. However, Brees and head coach Sean Payton merely put Kamara in a position to succeed. The running back’s ability to separate in man coverage on option routes and use his elite vision to get the most out of screen passes resulted in over 1,500 total receiving yards his first two seasons.
Kamara at his best glides away from defenders in the open field. He has an easy on the eye style that is deceiving. His long strides lull defenders into bad angles and missed tackles as Kamara gallops away for long gains.
There is no doubt Kamara is coming off his least productive year as a pro. Details emerged this off-season of his injury struggles through the 2019 campaign. Kamara tweaked his ankle early in the season and then suffered a torn medial collateral ligament (MCL) in Week 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was an injury he played through after sitting out two games and recovering over the bye week.
While not requiring surgery, the injury clearly hampered Kamara’s explosiveness down the stretch in 2019, and he has expressed to the media how he had to spend an extensive amount of his off-season rehabbing the knee injury. His production dropped in the receiving game where the back has been so effective, reaching only 533 yards on the same number of receptions as 2017 and 2018.
This brings us to his contract year. What does Kamara have to do to secure a long term future in NOLA? He has never been a 1,000-yard rusher. His highest rushing yards total came in 2018, rumbling for 883 yards. The way Payton likes to use Kamara out of the backfield means he doesn’t have to lead the league in rushing. However, he does need to get back to the kind of combined scrimmage yards production he enjoyed his first two seasons in the league, or possibly surpass it.
1,500 combined scrimmage yards is a must. The key is also the average yards per touch. Kamara set records as a rookie, averaging 6.1 yards per rush, and was equally explosive receiving out the backfield, averaging over 10 yards per reception. Remaining injury free is essential to regain the explosiveness Kamara lost in 2019, to get back to those average yards per touch numbers.
New Orleans is not short of playmakers on their roster either. So earning the required amount of touches for that kind of production is a question mark in itself. Saints running backs are historically effective in the receiving game already. That goes back to the days of Pierre Thomas during the franchise’s Super Bowl run over a decade ago.
New Orleans will want to keep Kamara, but we all know how running backs are treated in the NFL. Around the league, running backs need to assert themselves as indispensable to an offense in order to get long-term deals. Teams need to be 100 percent convinced of the value a running back offers before investing in their first post-rookie deal contract.
Christian McCaffrey in Carolina would have been an MVP candidate if the Panthers had a better record last year. Derrick Henry enjoyed a historic post-season for the Tennessee Titans in 2019 and led the league in rushing yards. Ezekiel Elliott has asserted himself as the face of the franchise in Dallas. Those guys got huge long term deals because they established themselves as indispensable to the success of their franchise.
Kamara has not done that yet. New Orleans went 13-3 in a down year for the running back. 1,500 yards from scrimmage with a high average yards per touch and double-digit touchdowns will get Kamara back in a Saints uniform for 2021. Probably on a franchise tag.
Kamara is the most talented man in the running back room. However, if he is not 100 percent healthy, Latavius Murray will eat into his rushing carries, and the Saints currently have solid, not exceptional, receiving backs in Ty Montgomery and Dwayne Washington on the roster.
Make no mistake though: this is Kamara’s job if he can stay healthy. However, if he wants to secure a future in New Orleans for the next half-decade he will need to raise his game and prove he is worth a long-term deal this season.
Several of his peers have succeeded in breaking down the modern-day narrative for running backs. Can Alvin Kamara do the same?
