New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara missed the team’s Week 16 contest against the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football. Let’s examine what happened to Kamara and whether he’ll suit up for New Orleans in Week 17 against the Las Vegas Raiders (or at any point this season).
Will Alvin Kamara Play in Week 17?
In Week 15, Kamara sustained a groin injury against the Washington Commanders, which caused him to miss Week 16 and potentially the remainder of the season. As of Thursday, he has not practiced this week, which doesn’t bode well for his availability in Week 17.
At first, Kamara’s injury didn’t seem serious, but Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi recently revealed that the injury ended up being “a little more significant than we initially thought,” adding that he might miss “multiple weeks.”
Rizzi said that Kamara has a better chance of playing in Week 18 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers than he does of suiting up this week against Las Vegas.
RB Alvin Kamara is continuing rehab from a groin injury, Rizzi said he has a better shot to play vs Bucs than this Sunday #Saints
— Erin Summers (@ErinESummers) December 26, 2024
Kamara, who is having the most productive rushing season of his career, has already rushed 950 yards through 14 games. He was almost certain to attain his first 1,000-yard season, and he also amassed 543 yards as a receiver out of the backfield.
However, the Saints have already been eliminated from the playoffs, so New Orleans has little incentive to rush Kamara back to play in meaningless games.
Despite Rizzi’s comment about potentially playing Kamara next week, we’ll see if they will decide to shut him down for the rest of the season.
Kamara’s Fantasy Outlook
Kamara has had a highly productive season (nine top-15 finishes) and is currently sitting at 1.2% over expectation for the year, his best mark since 2021.
But the groin injury that sidelined him for Monday night certainly has the potential to hold him out this week, thus leaving you without a big part of your regular-season run in your biggest matchup of the year.
Kamara will turn 30 years old in July, and while the pass-catching skills have aged well, I continue to think that we are on borrowed time with him as a weekly asset.
The rushing efficiency is fleeting to say the least, as a career-high 20.2% of his carries have failed to gain yardage this season.
If Kendre Miller can provide this franchise with confidence that he can be a two-down back, we could be looking at a hit-and-miss RB in an average offense that relies on checkdown passes.
That’s not to say Kamara won’t be usable in 2024 (the Saints have an out if they want it in his backloaded contract), but I think there’s a good chance his ADP reflects more name value than projectable production this offseason.
Who Will Start If Kamara Can’t Play?
If Kamara is out, I think we can pretty safely rule out any other Saints running backs (and Saints players in general) as fantasy options at this point.
New Orleans was unable to field a competitive team on Monday night against the Green Bay Packers, which resulted in Miller being fortunate to get to his 31 yards of production.
With no Kamara, Derek Carr, Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, or Taysom Hill, the Saints posted the first shutout of the 2024 NFL season.
Miller is the lead back in this offense and figures to hold that label for the rest of the season, but I’d rather Flex a receiver with any semblance of upside than chase my tail with this offense.