Alvin Kamara's summer took another painful turn Tuesday when the New Orleans Saints running back left a joint practice with the Dallas Cowboys clutching his left knee, an injury that will keep the 31-year-old sidelined for the remainder of the preseason and cloud his availability for the regular-season opener.
Kamara went down during the workout at River Ridge Playing Fields in Oxnard, California, where the Saints and Cowboys have been holding joint sessions ahead of their preseason finale, and was helped off the field by a Dallas trainer. He did not return. By Tuesday evening, testing had ruled out a torn ligament, according to Saints reporter Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football, whose sourcing was echoed across NFL outlets covering the team.
Alvin Kamara avoided a major knee injury. Didn't tear anything. Will be out for a few weeks.
— Nick Underhill, NewOrleans.Football
A Multi-Week Absence, Not a Season-Ender
A "few weeks" timeline effectively ends Kamara's preseason before it produced a single meaningful snap, and it leaves open the question of whether he will be ready when New Orleans opens its regular season. The Saints have not issued a formal roster move, and the team's medical staff is expected to re-evaluate the knee in the coming days as swelling subsides — standard protocol for injuries described as sprains rather than tears.
The setback is a familiar and unwelcome one. Kamara played through knee and ankle trouble for much of last season, a stretch that limited him to a career-low 11 games. He still led New Orleans' rushing attack in that span, carrying 131 times for 471 yards and a single touchdown — modest numbers for a player who had opened his career with eight straight seasons of at least 1,160 scrimmage yards, a run that once made him one of the league's more dependable dual-threat running backs.
The timing matters because New Orleans no longer treats Kamara as an automatic workhorse. The Saints signed Travis Etienne Jr. away from Jacksonville in free agency this spring on a four-year deal worth roughly $52 million, installing him as the presumptive lead back and pushing Kamara into a complementary role for the first time in his career. With Kamara now sidelined, Etienne is set to absorb the bulk of first-team reps through the rest of training camp, giving offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier an extended look at how the offense functions with Etienne as the primary ball-carrier before the games start to count.
New Orleans' ground game was one of the league's least productive last season, finishing among the bottom five teams with just over 1,600 rushing yards and nine touchdowns as a unit — a major driver behind the front office's decision to invest in Etienne rather than lean solely on an aging Kamara. The organization's other depth options have also been thinned by injury: rookie Devin Neal, who had been auditioning for early-season carries, and third-year back Kendre Miller have each dealt with significant injuries of their own this year, leaving Etienne with comparatively little proven competition behind him in the interim.
Kamara restructured his contract earlier in the offseason to remain in New Orleans, a move widely read as a sign both sides expected him to compete for meaningful touches in 2026 rather than serve strictly as a backup. Whether that role materializes early in the season now depends on how the knee responds over the next two to three weeks. The Saints close their preseason slate before final roster cuts, and barring a setback, Kamara is expected to be given every opportunity to prove his conditioning once he is cleared for contact — with the opening kickoff of the regular season serving as the practical deadline the training staff is working against.
