Into the Fire: Ingram Suspension or Not, Pressure is on Kamara

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Click! Doomsday! Mark Ingram has been suspended by the NFL for violating the league PED policy. It is the beginning of a quick end to the Saints’ Super Bowl aspirations. Well, maybe it is not that critical of a loss. Anyone thinking like really needs to chill, relax, and mellow out! Ingram plays running back and in 2018, that is the one of, if not the easiest position to figure out from a player personnel perspective. There are a few elite running backs worthy of the highest praise, but most of them are serviceable components to teams. The Eagles didn’t have one elite workhorse type back and neither did the Patriots. Teams can do just fine working with a committee average running backs. Good thing for the Saints is that it’s only a running back they will be missing, it’s only the first four games which include the two teams that picked atop the Draft this year, and Ingram is not their only super talented running back. The Saints also have Alvin Kamara ready to run and while it is not a doomsday scenario, things are about to be a lot tougher for Kamara than they were in his rookie season.

Is Alvin Kamara bound to have a quintessential sophomore slump and bite the dust hard as he gets going as a featured back in his second season? That, I think is a legitimate question to ask even if Ingram was not suspended. The feeling is that Sean Payton planned on utilizing Kamara a whole lot more this coming season and the rumor and innuendo suggested that Ingram was either going to be traded prior to the suspension or he was going to be phased out as a featured back within the offense during his contract year. This means that the Saints were not going to hesitate this season when it comes to giving Kamara a lot more responsibility.

We all watched Kamara in his rookie year with our jaws dropped. He feasted on all-purpose yardage and he was the perfect utility for a coach like Sean Payton. Kamara is a unique offensive weapon that was an extra thing teams had to started game planning against. Kamara’s receiving ability and elusiveness made him the a perfect compliment to Mark Ingram’s more traditional workhorse running back threat to teams. The Saints may have planned on using Kamara as a featured part of the offense, but now with Ingram not in the lineup for the first four weeks, they are going to be forced to experiment with Kamara as the man in the offense.

The Saints are obviously more than Kamara and Ingram on offense. Drew Brees had an off year and still threw for over 4,000 yards. But everyone following the NFL last season knew that the reason why the Saints were winning again was because their defense was not dead last in the league anymore and because they had a running game and gadget system working on offense that helped Drew Brees continue to thrive. With Ingram out and an offensive line that is still good but possible not as deep after the starting front five; the pressure is going to be a little tighter on fewer players than it was last season and maybe no tighter than it will be on Alvin Kamara. Kamara will be the guy teams game plan for first. Kamara will be the running attack. Did you know in his rookie of the year campaign, he only had one game where he rushed for over 100 yards? Kamara can run between the tackles, but can he do it for an entire game and not as a change of pace? This may have been the plan all along anyway, but the Mark Ingram suspension definitely shines a light on just how important it will be for the New Orleans Saints to have Alvin Kamara avoid a sophomore slump.

– Alan Michael