Alvin Kamara’s contract talks with the New Orleans Saints were a major storyline this summer, but the two sides didn’t make enough progress on a new deal before their Week 1 deadline. Now those conversations are expected to be shelved until 2025, avoiding a distraction during the regular season.
Here’s the latest on Kamara from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler:
I’m told the Saints and running back Alvin Kamara will not be reaching a new contract by Week 1. Kamara missed a minicamp day in June because of lack of progress on a new deal. He has two years left on a deal that pays him $11.8 million in 2024 cash and $25 million in 2025, the latter of which is not tenable for either side. So this could be a situation where Kamara plays the season out, then both sides make a decision on the future. Kamara is set to put up big numbers in Klint Kubiak’s offense, an iteration of the San Francisco system that catapulted Christian McCaffrey into a new stratosphere.
This lines up with what Kamara said last week — he wanted this to be settled, one way or another, before Sept. 8’s kickoff game with the Carolina Panther. That didn’t come to pass. So we’ll have to wait until next spring to learn whether or not Kamara will finish his playing career with the black and gold.
It’s disappointing that things reached this point, but it isn’t surprising. Kamara is a salary cap cuts candidate next year because his $25 million is non-guaranteed. If he doesn’t perform as well as hoped in Kubiak’s system, the Saints can choose to let him go. That’s why he initiated talks to try and negotiate a new deal with enough guarantees to avoid being cut next offseason.
Finding a number that makes sense for both sides is difficult. Kamara hasn’t played well enough in recent years to demand top dollar like McCaffrey, and other older running backs (like Derrick Henry) have had to settle for much less on the open market. At the same time, other star talents he likely feels he compares to are still getting paid (like Saquon Barkley), and clearly he and the Saints failed to meet in the middle.
This now becomes one of the big-ticket items for the Saints to cross off their 2025 offseason to-do list, but we’ll just have to wait and see how they go about it. If this is Kamara’s last run, be sure to enjoy it.
