Saints Could Make Brutal Alvin Kamara Decision After Latest Injury News

The New Orleans Saints have not decided to move on from Alvin Kamara yet, but for the first time in his career, the contract, production and health all line up for a real conversation about cutting the star running back after this season.
The Times-Picayune is ready to have that conversation.
Kamara left Sunday’s 24-10 loss to the Atlanta Falcons with a right knee injury, another blow in a miserable 2-9 start for New Orleans. Follow-up reporting says he suffered an MCL sprain and avoided a worst-case scenario, but he’s still expected to miss some time.
For a 30-year-old back whose explosiveness has already dipped, that’s the kind of injury that forces a front office to stare at the contract page a little longer than usual.
Saints Finally Have an Escape Hatch in Kamara’s Contract
Kamara signed a two-year extension in October 2024 that keeps him under contract through the 2026 season, according to SpoTrac. His 2025 money is essentially locked in, which makes an immediate move unlikely, but 2026 is where things get interesting.
According to cap data and analysis cited by NOLA.com and Over The Cap, the Saints could clear roughly $8.5 million in cap space in 2026 by designating Kamara as a post-June 1 cut, spreading about $18.2 million in dead money over two years instead of eating it all at once.
For a team that lives in annual cap gymnastics, that’s not a small lever. New Orleans has already shown it’s willing to make emotional cuts when the numbers stop making sense, as seen with recent veteran shakeups on offense.
If Kamara’s play continues to slide and younger, cheaper backs show anything over the next year, the 2026 “out” becomes more than theoretical.
Alvin Kamara’s Resurgence Has Faded at Age 30
On paper, this was supposed to be a second wind for Kamara. He put together a true bounce-back season in 2024, including a four-touchdown explosion against the Dallas Cowboys that helped justify the extension and quieted talk about “running back body syndrome” in his late 20s.
Under first-year head coach Kellen Moore, though, Kamara is having the worst statistical season of his career. As laid out by the Times-Picayune, he is posting career lows in yards per carry, yards per catch and yards per game. His receiving impact has cratered, with far fewer screens and snaps in the slot or out wide compared to his peak years.
Advanced numbers paint the same picture. Next Gen Stats data cited in the NOLA report has Kamara near the bottom of the league in rushing yards over expected, with only a handful of runs over 20 yards since 2023, and all of those came last season, not this one.
Some of that is on an offensive line that has struggled regardless of who is carrying the ball. But for a front office making decisions on aging skill players, the bottom line is simple: the explosive play rate that defined Kamara’s prime has not shown up in 2025.
How Kamara’s Knee Injury Pushes the Question
The latest knee sprain isn’t considered a long-term or career-threatening injury, but it is another lower-body issue on a 30-year-old back who already missed time with an ankle problem earlier this season.
In the short term, the Saints will have to lean on their other backs while Moore tries to salvage an offense that failed to score an offensive touchdown against Atlanta. In the longer term, Kamara’s absence gives New Orleans a chance to evaluate younger options and imagine what life without him really looks like.
Kamara has repeatedly said he wants to retire as a Saint and even joked about sipping piña coladas if he were ever traded. The problem is that his age curve, the cap sheet and now his knee are all pushing the franchise toward a much colder reality.
The Saints do not have to cut Alvin Kamara after this season. But for the first time, a brutal Kamara decision is not just talk, it’s a logical path that will be sitting on the table when they map out 2026.