Alvin Kamara — Week 2: Fourteen Touches for Twenty-Two Yards

Alvin Kamara's first game of the season was 14 touches for 22 yards. The best of them came with 12 54 left in the fourth quarter, Saints down 17 to nine, second and two at midfield: left guard for six yards and a first down, on the drive that ended in Chris Olave's touchdown. +0.2 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. It was the only one of his nine carries that came out above zero, and his only first down of the day.

The line: nine carries, 15 yards, no touchdown, −3.8 expected points on the carries; six targets, five catches, seven yards, −3.5 expected points on the targets. Both figures were the lowest on the team at their jobs. The carries went two, four, two, two, nothing, six, two, one and −4. The −4 was first and 10 at the Baltimore 32 with three 29 left in a tied game, right tackle, and it cost 4.6 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it; the Saints converted third and eight two snaps later and scored anyway. Five carries before halftime for 10 yards, four after for five. The catches went six, two, one, two and −4, with −6 air yards across the six targets, and none of the six throws traveled more than two yards past the line. The one trip inside the 20 went badly: first and 10 at the Baltimore 12 in the second quarter, left tackle for no gain, and on the next snap a catch short right for a loss of four. That drive ended in a 23-yard field goal. Five of the six targets came before halftime; the one after it, second and 19 late in the third, fell incomplete.

The usage was a lead back's. Nine carries to Travis Etienne's eight and C.J. Donaldson's one, six targets to Etienne's two, and the six targets were third on the team behind Olave's 10 and Devaughn Vele's seven. The yardage was not: Etienne's eight carries gained 25.

Back in June the preview's read on Kamara was a cliff after eight straight seasons of strong production — 3.6 yards a carry last year, the worst of his career, a season ended early by a knee injury, a contract restructured with no new guarantees — alongside the note that the hands were still the hands. He was inactive for Week 1, per John Sigler at Saints Wire, so this is the first data of his year. It reads like the preview: five of six caught, and under two yards a carry. What is new is the workload. 15 opportunities in his first game back, more than the back signed in March, says the Saints still intend to use him. One game does not say whether the yards come with it. New Orleans is home to the Raiders on Sunday the 20-seventh.

_Data via nflverse._