LFG Player of the Game Alvin Kamara shows he still has juice at 29

National Football League

Published Sep. 15, 2024 7:23 p.m. ET

ARLINGTON, Texas — Scoring four touchdowns in one game against the Cowboys was something only one NFL player had done in Alvin Kamara’s lifetime, but the Saints running back matched that record in Sunday’s 44-19 rout at AT&T Stadium.

Kamara ran for three touchdowns and caught a 57-yard score from quarterback Derek Carr, leading the Saints to a statement road win and also making him just the second-ever winner of Tom Brady‘s LFG Player of the Game honors.

“What a performance by you. You did it in the run game, you did it in the pass game, you were awesome today,” Brady said to Kamara in presenting the award on air after Sunday’s win on FOX.

Kamara, who finished the day with 180 yards of total offense, gave credit to his offensive line and thanked Brady.

“This came out of your budget, Tom?” he joked, holding up the new hardware.

The Saints had opened the season with a strong 47-10 win over Carolina, but beating a team that went 2-15 last season only carries so much weight. To validate that success, they went into AT&T Stadium, where the Cowboys had won 16 straight regular-season home games, and scored touchdowns on their first six drives, dominating the Dallas defense.

Tom Brady: ‘Super impressed’ with Derek Carr, Saints’ dominant win

This was a difficult week for the city of New Orleans, with the city dealing with flooding and power outages as Hurricane Francine came up from the Gulf of Mexico. The city has dealt with bigger storms, but football is something that can lift the community through difficult times, and Kamara said he hoped that Sunday’s win could do that again.

“It’s tough any time you hear the word storm in New Orleans, right?” he said. “Just that word, it sends kind of a shot throughout the city, anticipating and then going through it. I know a lot of people lost some stuff this week, so I’m definitely feeling for them and [offering] prayers for them. On the flip side, I know a lot of people that went through that storm and said they were still on the way to Dallas. So the support from the city, it’s amazing.”

Even in the Cowboys’ home opener, you could hear the familiar “Who dat?” chant from Saints fans as the offense scored again and again. Kamara got it started with a 5-yard touchdown on the opening drive, and it was still just a 14-6 lead in the second quarter when he took a short dump-off from Carr and went 57 yards untouched through the Dallas defense.

New Orleans (2-0) rushed 39 times for 190 yards — Kamara had 115 on his 20 carries — and that was just ahead of the 180 yards on 37 carries the Saints had last week against Carolina. Considering the Saints didn’t rush for more than 161 in any game in all of 2023, it speaks to an improved ground game under new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, something that opens up the entire offense.

“We were able to run the football, and any time you can run the football, win the line of scrimmage, every coach is going to preach it until they’re blue in the face, but our guys have just been executing really well,” Carr said. “In football, you go as the trenches go, and our guys have bought into the system, bought into the culture, the coaching, and you see the work paying off.”

Kamara’s future after this season is uncertain. He’s due to make $22 million in 2025, the final year of his contract, potentially leaving him exposed to an offseason cut. He’s played his entire career in New Orleans, and having just turned 29 in July, he’s at an age where many runners are starting to decline.

“I never felt like he was an aging running back,” coach Dennis Allen said after the game. “I felt he was still an explosive player, and I think we’re utilizing him in a way that allows him to be more effective. I think he’s still one of those guys that if you create some space, he’s able to operate in space. I think he’s pretty good.”

To do what Kamara did on Sunday is extremely rare. He’s just the fifth player ever to score four touchdowns in a game against the Cowboys, joining the Packers‘ Aaron Jones in 2019, the Packers’ Sterling Sharpe in 1994, the Rams’ Harold Jackson in 1963 and Washington’s Dick James in 1961. Sunday’s win was dominant enough to register nationally, especially considering most pundits had the Saints third or even fourth in their division, despite them tying for the best record in the NFC South last season.

Tom Brady’s LFG Player of the Game: Saints RB Alvin Kamara

Can the Saints turn all of this promising start into a return to the playoffs? They haven’t been since 2020, when their season ended at the hands of Brady and the Bucs on their way to a Super Bowl championship. The only time Kamara has to see Brady now is when he’s getting postgame congratulations on television, and he likes the direction this year’s Saints are off to in 2024.

“I think it’s just the belief that we have right now, not only in ourselves, but in [the coaches] and the plans these guys are installing. They’re putting us in position,” he said. “I feel good. I mean this: I feel like I can play until I feel like I don’t want to play. That’s what I’m going to keep doing. It’s fun. I feel like we’re winning. I like being here. I like being around my teammates. I love the city. So let’s keep going.

“I’m 29. I guess I’m old in football years, but I don’t feel old.”

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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