New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara believes the time for contract negotiations has come and gone. The 29-year-old veteran believes in having a plan, though, and has already taken steps by listing his New Orleans home for sale. The 5-foot-10, 215 lb. back explained the reasoning behind the move with Matthew Paras of The Times-Picayune.
“Yeah, I’m selling my house,” Kamara said. “I would like to call myself a serial entrepreneur. I dabble in many things, the real estate market being one of them. Then I talked to (car dealer) Matt Bowers and he told me I can live with him. So I think it was a good financial decision to list my house.”
Kamara is owed $22.4M in base salary in 2025, and the Saints would recover nearly $19M in a pre-June 1 release or trade or a full $25M in savings in a post-June 1 release or trade with the $10M dead cap split between 2025 and 2026.
“It’s too late for contract talk,” Kamara said. “Like I told y’all when I got to (training camp), if it get done, cool. If it don’t, cool.”
The long and short of it is, given the Saints’ laundry list of salary cap issues, Kamara sees the writing on the wall that if he’s playing in 2025, it won’t be in NOLA.
Alvin Kamara’s uncertain contract future
The wheels can come off fast even for the best of running backs. Dalvin Cook accumulated four straight 1,100+ yard seasons with the Minnesota Vikings from 2019 to 2022. He flamed out with the New York Jets in 2023, posting just 214 yards on 67 carries. Now Cook is on the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad as the team’s fourth-string running back.
For every Frank Gore or Adrian Peterson, who played well into their mid-30s, some excellent runners don’t stick past age 30.
Kamara doesn’t seem all that phased this could be his Saints’ swan song, although his eyes may be bigger than his stomach. Or maybe it would be knees in the case of RBs.
Kamara doesn’t seem all that phased this could be his Saints’ swan song, although his eyes may be bigger than his stomach. Or maybe it would be knees in the case of RBs.
“I feel like there is no time to waste, because let’s just say I’m at the halfway point, if I were to play 16 years,” said Kamara. “Or 10 years, I’m on the back end of my career. I don’t want to waste no time. I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘I’ve got time. I’ve got time.’ Ain’t no time, so I’m trying to run it up. I’m trying to do what I can to have the most success. And in this league, we measure success by Super Bowls and playing in February. That’s what I’m trying to get to.”
Given his skill set as a pass-catcher, any number of playoff-contending teams would love to have Alvin Kamara at their disposal on a new contract in 2025. He just has to get through the Saints’ 2024 season unscathed first.
