NEW ORLEANS — Tyrann Mathieu took aim this week at Saints team officials for how they have handled Alvin Kamara, saying on his podcast that the club did not deal with the veteran back in good faith and that it lacked the courage to cut him. Mathieu said the Saints have not treated Kamara the way they should treat their franchise all-time touchdown leader.
The criticism landed as Kamara, 30, enters his 10th season and tries to steady a résumé that has shifted sharply from peak play to decline. Last season he set career lows with 471 rushing yards, a 3.6-yard average, 33 catches, 186 receiving yards and one touchdown, and he did not finish either of the past two seasons because of injuries.
Those numbers help explain why the Saints have adjusted how they use him. Kamara’s rushing success rate of 32.06% ranked 63rd out of 65 backs with at least 50 carries last season, he needed 18.7 attempts per broken tackle, and his 1.4 yards after contact per rush ranked last among 49 backs. He also managed only one run longer than 20 yards over the last three seasons. On passing downs, the Saints even turned to rookie Devin Neal in key situations last season because Kamara’s pass protection was poor; he allowed six sacks in 48 blocking reps and ranked 59th out of 60 backs in pass protection.
That context is what made Jeff Duncan’s pushback so sharp. He wrote that he could not see how anyone could say the Saints are mistreating Kamara, arguing instead that the team is going out of its way to do right by him. The Saints have long been viewed as one of the league’s more loyal organizations, sometimes to a fault, but that loyalty is being tested against the reality of a back who is no longer producing like the player who once defined so much of their offense.
Kamara remains one of the most accomplished and popular players in Saints history, and the tension now is less about sentiment than valuation. He was among the top 10 highest-paid backs in the league, yet his recent production has not matched that status. Audric Estimé, who joined the Saints in Week 10 last season, produced a 32-yard run on 46 attempts, while Kamara’s body of work now includes just two 50-plus-yard receptions over the last five seasons. The Saints’ head coach is Kellen Moore, with Mickey Loomis serving as general manager, and the decisions around Kamara fit into a broader question about how much of the past the franchise is willing to carry into the future. A separate report on the Saints’ draft silence around Cam Jordan and Kamara suggested roster changes could be coming, underscoring how much is in flux in New Orleans.
For now, the debate is not whether Kamara matters to the Saints. It is whether the franchise can honor what he was while making clear that what he is now must be judged by the field, not the memory.
