What Went Wrong with Alvin Kamara?

February 7, 2020

New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara didn't provide the top-tier fantasy football production in 2019 that owners were expecting. Jake Trowbridge evaluates how his injury, touchdown regression, and other factors played into his underwhelming finish, and what it means for 2020.

"What Went Wrong?" is a Rotoballer offseason series exploring fantasy players who underperformed their ADP. We'll explain why they fell below expectations and try to determine what it means for their value going forward.

Drafted in the top tier of running backs, with a preseason ADP of #3 overall, many fantasy owners expected Alvin Kamara to fight with Saquon Barkley and Christian McCaffrey for the top fantasy finish in 2019. The third-year running back had finished as RB3 and RB4 in his previous two seasons and looked primed for even more production. Instead, Kamara's season remained jammed in first gear as he coasted to a respectable, but ultimately underwhelming, finish as the RB9 in PPR formats.

In the 14 weeks he played, Kamara finished as an RB1 seven times. Four times he finished as an RB2, once as an RB3, and only two times did he drop below that threshold. Again, this was not a terrible season by any stretch. But it wasn't the league-winning production fantasy managers expected. So what went wrong?

The Simple Stats

• New Orleans had 405 team rushing attempts in 2019, compared to 471 in 2018, and 444 in 2017.
• New Orleans ran the ball 40% of the time in 2019, compared to 46.6% in 2018, and 44.4% in 2017.
• Kamara had 171 rushing attempts in 2019, compared to 194 in 2018, and only 120 in 2017.
• Kamara averaged 55.9 rushing yards per game in 2019 (22nd among RBs), compared to 58.9 in 2018 (20th), and 45.5 in 2017 (27th).
• Kamara once again put up 81 receptions in 2019, which is the exact number he had in 2018 and 2017.
• Kamara's yards per reception decreased to 6.6 in 2019 (33rd among RBs), compared to 8.8 in 2018 (12th), and a whopping 10.2 in 2017 (3rd).

The fact that the Saints leaned more on the passing game this year theoretically should have favored Kamara, as he's been a dynamic receiving weapon. That's certainly where he made his hay as a rookie. We've never really relied on Kamara to notch those 100+ yard rushing games like Ezekiel Elliott or Nick Chubb. In fact, including the postseason, he's only had two such games in his career.

That dip in his receiving yards is what's most discouraging. Could it be that defenses are simply figuring out how to stop Kamara from gashing them in the receiving game? Or is there something else at play?

The Injury Setback

Kamara missed Weeks 7 and 8 with a high ankle sprain, although he probably should have sat out Week 6 as well. The injury had already popped up at that point, but he elected to play through it against Jacksonville. In Week 10, his first game back from injury, Kamara only rushed the ball four times, the lowest number since his rookie season. Obviously, the coaching staff didn't believe he was fully healed.

That bore out in the way he broke tackles. Leading up to his injury, Kamara was breaking tackles at an outrageous 31% rate. Coming back from that injury, his broken tackle rate dropped down to just above 10%.

High ankle sprains usually take 4-6 weeks to fully heal, so Kamara being rushed back to play against the Falcons -- in a devastating 9-26 loss, no less -- didn't make a whole lot of sense at the time, nor does it in retrospect. It's possible, even probable, that Kamara reinjured it down the stretch because it was under-treated or simply not given enough time to rest.

They did lighten his load just a tad. Kamara had been on the field for 72% of offensive snaps in the games prior to his injury, but that number decreased to 66% after the injury. Likewise, he was averaging 14.3 rushing attempts pre-injury, but only 10.6 attempts the rest of the way. His targets per game remained steady, however, showing the coaching staff still wanted to utilize him. But they also wanted to mitigate further injury risks.

Touchdown Regression

This is where the wheels really fell off this year for Kamara. And perhaps we should have seen it coming. In his previous two seasons, the third-round pick displayed a rare efficiency in finding the end zone that's nearly impossible to sustain.

• In 2017, he scored 13 total touchdowns on 201 touches. (6.46%)
• In 2018, he scored 18 total touchdowns on 275 touches. (6.54%)

To understand how wild those numbers were, you just need to compare it to Todd Gurley's stats in those same years. Gurley led all running backs in rushing TDs in both 2017 and 2018, yet finished with a 5.19% and 6.23% touchdown rate, respectively.

• In 2019, however, Kamara scored just 6 total touchdowns on 252 touches. (2.38%)

Even more perplexing, all six of those touchdowns were scored in just three games (Weeks 3, 16, and 17). Some regression was to be expected, but there wasn't a soul in the industry who was projecting such an extreme dip.

Red Zone Numbers

If there is touchdown regression to be had, you can practically guarantee there's some accompanying backsliding in the red zone. Sure enough, Kamara's red-zone attempts were nearly cut in half from his sophomore season, in which he had career-high TD numbers.

Here are Kamara's rushing attempts inside the 20-yard-line over the last three season, compared to that of his backfield mates:

• 2019 = 26; Murray = 23
• 2018 = 50; Ingram = 28
• 2017 = 22; Ingram = 33

And here are his targets inside the 20, compared to his backfield mates:

• 2019 = 11; Murray = 8
• 2018 = 25; Ingram = 1
• 2017 = 22; Ingram = 12

It's fair to assume some of Kamara's decreased red-zone usage was due to the injury, and the team playing it safe with him.

The Murray Situation

Speaking of his backfield mates, there seems to be a common thought in the fantasy community that Latavius Murray cut into more of Kamara's workload than Mark Ingram had previously. But that's simply not true.

Murray accumulated 146 rushing attempts and 43 targets over a full season in 2019. That's only slightly more than Ingram had over 12 games in 2018 (138 rushing attempts, 27 targets), and significantly less than Ingram had in 2017 (230 rushing attempts, 71 targets).

What's more, 32.8% of Murray's rushing attempts and 41.9% of his targets came in the two games Kamara missed. That's an absurd uptick. To put it plainly, Murray was not a significant factor in Kamara's production (or lack thereof).

Quarterback Change

In the five games Kamara played with Teddy Bridgewater taking the majority of snaps under center, he averaged 55 rushing yards on 15 attempts (3.67 YPA), 41 receiving yards on 6 targets (6.83 YPA), and picked up two total touchdowns.

Meanwhile, with Drew Brees at the helm the rest of the season, Kamara averaged 58 rushing yards on 11 attempts (5.27 YPA), 37 receiving yards on 7 targets (5.29 YPA), and scored his remaining four touchdowns.

It's pretty obvious that defenses didn't fear Bridgewater quite the same as they did Brees, which put more pressure on Kamara to make plays all by himself.

How Will It Go In 2020?

Kamara's fantasy season feels a lot like David Johnson's from 2018. Yes, considering the draft capital you had to invest in them, they were both disappointments. But it's not as if they fell off the face of the Earth in those down seasons.

The fear, though, is that Kamara continues down the David Johnson path. That in 2020 he actually does disappear from your fantasy team. But we shouldn't be so quick to predict a similar trajectory for Kamara going forward.

The injury clearly played a tremendous part in his downturn in production. His style of playing, perhaps more than most running backs, relies on a full range of agility. That high ankle sprain should be a non-factor come next season, which will allow the Saints to utilize Kamara the way they had with so much success in his first two years.

His touchdown numbers should regress back to the mean. Maybe he doesn't reach those absurdly efficient touchdown numbers from his rookie and sophomore seasons, but it should certainly get closer to those metrics.

The only thing that makes Kamara truly difficult to project for 2020 is the quarterback situation. Obviously, if Brees returns, he should be right in the mix as a top-five running back. If Brees steps away, the Saints appear to have slotted Taysom Hill -- not Bridgewater -- in as his replacement. That could benefit Kamara significantly, as rushing quarterbacks can vault a running back's efficiency. Just look at what Lamar Jackson did for Baltimore's running back stable.

So don't shy away from Kamara in the future. He still has all the talent in the world and is in a great situation to provide a top tier fantasy production going forward.

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