NEW ORLEANS — Alvin Kamara has always been about fun. When he's healthy and playing great he delivers a football experience like no other Saints player ever has.
From ridiculous touchdowns where he makes his body do things that appear to be more magic than football, to eating Airheads and doing his post game Zoom interviews shirtless, Alvin Kamara seems intent on making 2020 Saints football as fun as possible. In a year filled with so much awful and potentially even more terrible bearing down on us as you read this, watching Kamara is the tonic Saints fans need.
Some people argued with me about whether the Saints should have paid Alvin Kamara huge money. "Smart teams don't pay running backs." they said.
"Smart teams let running backs leave and draft a younger, cheaper replacement" they told me on Twitter.
My response was, "Alvin Kamara is fun, I like fun, I enjoy fun, it's not my money, and I want all of Kamara's great years to be as a Saint."
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Don't tell me about analytics and salary cap. I'm not even listening because I'm watching Alvin do this.
There was 1 play against Detroit that explains how so extraordinary Kamara is.
Saints face a 4th and 3 from the Lions 43-yard-line. Alvin Kamara is in the slot and the Lions don't mess around and put a linebacker or safety on him. Nope. They recognize in the biggest moments Payton wants to get the ball to Kamara. So the Lions have a corner on Kamara. This is a match-up that should favor the Lions even if the corner is below average because even good running backs shouldn't be able to run routes as well as average receivers. Kamara torched the Lions corner, Drew Brees hits him in stride, and 3 plays the later the game was tied.
The Lions did everything right on the play AND IT STILL DIDN'T MATTER. 75 million for THAT? Biggest bargain on earth.
2020 Alvin Kamara has gone to another level. He already has 7 touchdowns and is on pace to possibly get 1,000 yards rushing and receiving. The analytics nerds and salary cap people will give us 50 reasons why you don't pay a running back but Sean Payton against Detroit showed why Kamara doesn't fit neatly into the running back category. The Saints smartly realized this and went against conventional wisdom and locked in Alvin Kamara's prime for themselves.
Maybe the contract doesn't look so great in 2 or 3 years but imagine if the Saints decided not to pay Kamara this year and next March he took his talents to Atlanta and we had to watch even 1 great Kamara touchdown in a Falcons uniform? I think I'd rather you dump a bucket of Rona on my head than live that nightmare.
Alvin Kamara is too much fun to have any other city have him.
Saints Fan Mood and Meditation Music: Boom -- X Ambassadors Drew Brees is fine. Stop worrying about his arm strength, his short throws and his supposed decline. This is his farewell tour so enjoy it. He's not going to be the Saints quarterback in 2021, and whatever comes after Brees, I guarantee we will be looking back on how we didn't appreciate the ruthless efficiency of 19-25 and 2 touchdowns.
Drew is just giving us the exact same thing since 2017. Maybe people are bored and want something else? I love how dismissive Brees is of throwing the ball down field and he's just gonna keep on keeping on. If he gets chances to throw deep like he did against the Lions, cool, if not that's fine too.
I love Boom by the X Ambassadors. You might not know it but you've heard it in like 300 commercials. It reminds me of Bress in 2020.
"I got a new tattoo, don't know what to tell you Got nothing left to prove to you I said hey, uh huh, you can't stop me 'Cause my pain, uh huh, is Gasoline
I can't wait, no, for nobody If you break my heart, it's 1,2,3
Boom Boom Boom
Drew Brees needs to be building a list of all the experts saying he's cooked and then when he lifts the Lombardi savage them right before he exits stage left. Why can't the talking heads let us enjoy Drew's farewell tour in peace? The national media seems obsessed with telling us Brees is finished and the likes of Colin Cowherd tell us he's not a top 10 quarterback anymore. ESPN Mina Kimes was also talking about when will it be Jameis Winston time. Sure. Whatever happens in 2020 I'm rooting so hard for Drew to stick it to all the doubters.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The Games Last Week: 2-3
Season: 11--9
New Orleans (-7.5) vs Los Angeles Chargers: The Saints 2020 season should be called 'Chaos in the Big Easy'. From Drew Brees' offseason interview with Yahoo Finance, to a corona virus scare the night before the Lions game, to possibly playing a Monday night game against the Chargers in Indianapolis, the Saints are chaotic even by 2020's 'Insanity is swallowing the world whole' standards.
When Sean Payton and Alvin Kamara said after the win in Detroit, "No one cares.", what they really meant was "The NFL doesn't care." In 2020 the NFL has clearly decided the show goes on and either teams keep up or they get left on the roadside like discarded trash. I'll leave it to smarter people to debate if that's the right thing for NFL to do, I'm just explaining how things are for the 2020 Saints.
Rona problems? Nobody cares.
Hurricane coming?
Nobody cares.
At least Sean Payton knows what's up and realizes the Saints just have to figure a way through it all.
The Chargers on offense are 7th in passing yards, 12th in rushing yards, but only 20th in points per game (20.3). They are starting a rookie quarterback, Justin Herbert, who went to Tampa and completed 20 of 25 passes. They'll be without star running back Austin Ekeler, so that's good news for the Saints.
The Charger defense only has 6 sacks in 4 games, but really the key for this game is the health status of Ryan Ramczyk. If he plays the Saints will be fine, but if he can't because of the concussion against the Lions, the Saints offensive line may have reached the tipping point where they are too injured to function at a high level. No Ramczyk and no Andrus Peat allowed the trash can Lions defense to become average.
If Saints can get to 3-2 and let Michael Thomas rest against the Chargers and the bye week, suddenly things are looking pretty good.
Saints 34-20
Buffalo (+3.5) at Tennessee: I just made up that line because this game probably won't be played because the Titans are drenched in Rona. Here's the thing, the NFL will move along the season without the Titans so fast it'll make our heads spin. Fairness has nothing to do with anything, the NFL isn't going to let 1 or 2 teams cost the league billions in TV money. The Super Bowl will be played between the last 2 teams with enough corona virus free players.
Bills by forfeit?
Carolina (+2.5) at Atlanta: Dan Quinn still has a job but Bill O'Brien doesn't? 2020 wild y'all.
Panthers 27-23
Tampa Bay (-5.5) at Chicago: Give the Buccaneers credit for handling their business against horrible teams. Bears are a fraud at 3-1. Bucs 24-10
New York Giants (+9) at Dallas: Mike Nolan left the Saints to oversee a defense that makes the Rob Ryan Saints units look competent.
Cowboys 35-27