The one thing working in Alvin Kamara’s favor is that the New Orleans Saints are traditionally, uh, not great with money.
General manager Mickey Loomis has built his team around big contracts and deferred payments. The Saints have used voidable years and restructurings as the salary cap version of a credit card, pushing potentially suffocating cap hits down the line for their future selves to worry about.
You need look no further than 2023’s record and 2025’s projected numbers to see how this turns out. New Orleans has an aging roster coming off a playoff-less 8-9 season. Despite this, the team is an estimated $88 million over next year’s projected spending limit, per Over The Cap. That’s more than double the red ink of the next closest team, the Cleveland Browns.
That makes any extension for Kamara a tough sell, but he’s pushing for it regardless. The All-Pro tailback is in the second-to-last season of a five-year, $75 million contract. Kamara sat out Thursday’s mandatory minicamp practice in hopes of speeding along negotiations, which have been thus far fruitless.
There’s a path forward that benefits both sides. The soon-to-be 29-year-old has the team’s largest cap hit in 2024 at over $18.5 million. In 2025 he’s on the hook for an absolutely untenable $29 million. New Orleans can designate him a post-June 1 release next offseason and shave $25 million worth of cap commitments from its balance sheet, but the best possible outcome would be a modest extension that delivers Kamara a little more guaranteed cash over the next two years while providing significant financial relief in the process.
If Kamara’s looking for anything more than that, well, good luck. While he’s been the beating heart of an offense that phased out of the Drew Brees era and saw its passing game downgraded by Michael Thomas’ unshakable injury woes, an age-related decline is waiting at his doorstep. It’s been three years since he averaged better than 4.0 yards per carry. 2023 saw him tie a career low in broken tackles (seven, per Pro Football Reference) and average -0.56 rushing yards over expected (RYOE) per handoff, fourth worst among qualified NFL running backs.
Kamara has bounced back from similar slumps. He was even worse in 2021 when he averaged a career worst 1.5 yards after contact and -0.59 RYOE per carry. In 2022 he was a reliable dual-threat presence in the backfield, even if he was mostly average in the process. But 2023, his first season with Derek Carr at quarterback, saw his receiving efficiency fall even as he became a better target. Kamara’s two drops (on 86 targets) were a career low but so were his 5.4 yards per target and 6.7 yards after catch per reception.
Now he’s entering his age 29 season in a marketplace where running backs remain undervalued thanks to a glut of talent. Based on the deals we saw this offseason, he’s probably worth something like the $7 million annual salary Aaron Jones will receive from the Minnesota Vikings.
The Saints may value him more than that thanks to the positional scarcity on their roster for 2024; Jamaal Williams just had his worst season as a pro and Kendre Miller underwhelmed as a rookie. Next spring’s expected crop of free agent runners also works in Kamara’s favor. The most viable tailbacks slated to hit the open market next spring is headlined by guys like Jones (who’ll be 31 years old), Najee Harris and maaaaybe Rhamondre Stevenson (who is also working on his own extension talks).
What does this mean for New Orleans? That a reasonable extension makes sense even if Kamara is no longer a Pro Bowl back. Will it turn out that way? With the Saints, no one can ever really be sure. If he does sign don’t be surprised if what’s actually a short-term deal for something like two years and $15 million seems a lot longer thanks to voidable years and all the other cap gymnastics we’ve come to expect from Loomis and his crew.
