Latest / AFR Saints / Saints Reveal Alvin Kamara Contract Details | Is This Kamara's Final NFL Season?

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Saints Reveal Alvin Kamara Contract Details | Is This Kamara's Final NFL Season? · AFR Saints

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  Speaker 1: dot org. Golf dot Breck dot org. A day ago,
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  Speaker 1: Nick Underhill reported that Alvin Kamara and the Saints had
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  Speaker 1: agreed on a new deal to keep the running back
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  Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Well now terms of that contract have
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  Speaker 1: leaked Ross Jackson, Louisiana sports dot net and locked on
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  Speaker 1: Saints baton leadoff for us here to fill in all
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  Speaker 1: the djo man.
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  Speaker 2: How are you, hey man? Doing great? Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 1: It's our pleasure. First a reaction to the decision that
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  Speaker 1: or the news. I guess the Kamara will be back.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is sort of what it should have been
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  Speaker 2: the entire time, and certainly what was expected. The figure
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  Speaker 2: out how to make sure that the money was going
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  Speaker 2: to be commensurate with what the role was going to
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  Speaker 2: be now, it looks like that set. Now the next
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  Speaker 2: big thing is figure out exactly what that role actually
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  Speaker 2: looks like on the football field. But it's clear that
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  Speaker 2: there's a clear vision about what this is going to
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  Speaker 2: look like where Alvin Kamara fits in, and that the
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  Speaker 2: new contract certainly certainly reflects that.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I don't want to be presumptive here, but it
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  Speaker 1: is pretty clear the Saints were not bringing Kamara back
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  Speaker 1: at his old contract, so there were two options after
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  Speaker 1: they restructured it. He was either not going to be
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  Speaker 1: back in New Orleans or he was going to agree
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  Speaker 1: to a pay cut. As far as you could tell,
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  Speaker 1: was there ever a time where this was like really
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  Speaker 1: close to Kamara and not being back.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that depends on how the conversations went.
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  Speaker 2: I do. My understanding is that things weren't necessarily you know,
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  Speaker 2: all sunshine and rainbows throughout all these conversations, no doubt
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  Speaker 2: about that. But you know, I think that they were
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  Speaker 2: able to get this done in such a way that
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  Speaker 2: it ends up working on both sides. And it's pretty
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  Speaker 2: akin to what we've seen this team doing over the
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  Speaker 2: court the past few years with a Damaro Davis and
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  Speaker 2: a Tyron Matthews where the pay overall gets reduced, but
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  Speaker 2: then there's some incentives that are built in. I think
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  Speaker 2: that with that that probably kept that conversation a little
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  Speaker 2: bit more close to being conducive or productive as opposed
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  Speaker 2: to destructive in such a way. So I think that
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  Speaker 2: certainly helped. I don't know that it got super close
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  Speaker 2: to there being anything, but this certainly helped to keep
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  Speaker 2: any tough decisions from having to be made.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's talk about the terms. What the contract was, now,
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  Speaker 1: what the contract will be? Walk us through it please.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, now, the contract which was once a ten
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  Speaker 2: and a half million dollar cap fit that included a
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  Speaker 2: bunch of bells and whistles. After a recent restructure that
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  Speaker 2: you know in both the fifty percent rule, which is
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  Speaker 2: like a rarely used rule but the Saints actually used
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  Speaker 2: it pretty often, it created this whole situation to where
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  Speaker 2: they did save some money this year without guaranteeing any
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  Speaker 2: money in the future years. But he still carried a
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  Speaker 2: ten and a half million dollar cap fit. So basically
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  Speaker 2: what they did was they went back and they effectively
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  Speaker 2: restruct not restructure, but reworked that two year extension that
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  Speaker 2: he agreed to just a few years ago, which kind
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  Speaker 2: of changed what the money looked like in terms of
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  Speaker 2: what was going to be owed to him overall. That
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  Speaker 2: then reduced that cap hit from ten and a half
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  Speaker 2: million dollars down to a six million dollar base. And
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  Speaker 2: then there's about two and a half million dollars that
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  Speaker 2: he can earn in incentives that are probably going to
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  Speaker 2: be linked to things like playing time as well as
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  Speaker 2: production things like that, and so we'll see kind of
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  Speaker 2: where those pieces go. But that's the new deal and
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  Speaker 2: new term six million dollars with the chance of getting
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  Speaker 2: up to eight million dollars. So that eight and a
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  Speaker 2: half million dollars. So that's a pretty big saving. It's
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  Speaker 2: pretty big a chunk of change for New Order.
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  Speaker 1: So what does that mean in Ross Jackson's I guess
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  Speaker 1: what does that mean for the Saints? Where they are
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  Speaker 1: within cap compliance right now? I mean, we know they're
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  Speaker 1: within cap compliance, but how much space did they have?
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  Speaker 1: Are they look and are they looking to use that money?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think for the most part, I mean they're
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  Speaker 2: still below ten million dollars. You remember they had the
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  Speaker 2: deal that they got done with cam Jordan that ate
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  Speaker 2: away at a little bit of that now to steal
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  Speaker 2: freeze little bit up. So they're not you know, they're
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  Speaker 2: not balling out of control or anything here, but they
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  Speaker 2: are now at least in a position to where if
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  Speaker 2: they get into the season and they need to sign,
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  Speaker 2: you know, or make a trade at the trade deadline,
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  Speaker 2: or they want to make a trade at roster cuts,
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  Speaker 2: they now kind of have a little bit of that flexibility.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing that would be super at groundbreaking or earth shattering,
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  Speaker 2: but certainly things that would allow them to be able
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  Speaker 2: to bring in new depth stuff like that. Like it
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  Speaker 2: gives them those types of that kind of breathe ingram
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  Speaker 2: for the most part. And so that's kind of where
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  Speaker 2: they are now. I don't know that they're in a
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  Speaker 2: rush to utilize it in any way. It seems like
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  Speaker 2: it's more so been the rhythm of New Orleans over
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  Speaker 2: the course of the past couple of years. Try to
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  Speaker 2: go into the season and you know, below the salary
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  Speaker 2: cap with some spending money in case they do need
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  Speaker 2: to use that. If they don't, then they can roll
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  Speaker 2: it over into the next year.
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  Speaker 1: Ross Jackson is with us Louisiana Sports dot Net. You
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  Speaker 1: can read them for free there. You can listen or
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  Speaker 1: watch over locked on Saints. So you said, there's obviously
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  Speaker 1: the cap situation and then there's the role. Well, let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about the role. So we know that Saints went
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  Speaker 1: and invested a lot of money in Chen to come
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  Speaker 1: in with fifty four million dollars thereabouts. So what does
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  Speaker 1: what does that mean for Alvin Kamara's role in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and effectively, it means that he gets the return
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  Speaker 2: to playing a bit more of a complimentary role or
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  Speaker 2: a second back role. So while we're not talking about me,
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  Speaker 2: we're not trying to make the claim here that we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about the Alvin Kamara of twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
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  Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, we are kind of talking about
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  Speaker 2: a similar role in terms of what maybe his volume
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  Speaker 2: might be and things like that. And so I think
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  Speaker 2: we have seen from the very beginning when Alvin Kamara
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  Speaker 2: showed up during the OTA practice as well as when
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  Speaker 2: both he and Travis D. Cham were in the building
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  Speaker 2: for the mini camp practices mandatory mini camp before the
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  Speaker 2: training camp break, we saw from the very beginning there
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  Speaker 2: Travis H. Chang Junior was first in the rotation. Alvin
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  Speaker 2: Kamier was second in the rotation. I think you can
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  Speaker 2: expect that now going into the season, everyone to break
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  Speaker 2: out over one hundred percent of kind of courtorial running
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  Speaker 2: back touches. It would not surprise me if somewhere between
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  Speaker 2: fifty to sixty percent were intended to go to Travis
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  Speaker 2: da Chang Junior. Another large chunk would be then intended
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  Speaker 2: to go to Alvin Kamara, with kind of a smaller
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  Speaker 2: piece leftover for the kind of third fourth running backs
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  Speaker 2: in the building. That's assuming everybody stays healthy throughout the
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  Speaker 2: entire season, And so I think that's what you're going
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  Speaker 2: to see is a little bit more of an efficient
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  Speaker 2: usage of his skill set, maybe some more of those
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  Speaker 2: twenty one personnel as in two running back one tight
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  Speaker 2: end sets with him and Chan on the field at
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  Speaker 2: the same time, which would be a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: venture away from what Kellen Moore has done in the past.
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  Speaker 2: At most you've seen him, like over the course of
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  Speaker 2: his Dallas Cowboys tenure, for instance, less than five percent
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  Speaker 2: of the time he was utilizing at But now you
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  Speaker 2: have some really interesting things you can do with Alvin Kamara,
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  Speaker 2: who can do more than just run routes out of
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  Speaker 2: the backfield. You can motion him out into the slot,
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  Speaker 2: you can motion them out out wide. You can bring
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  Speaker 2: some linebackers out that way and kind of challenge man
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  Speaker 2: defenses in interesting ways. There's a lot of unique things
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  Speaker 2: that you can do with him now now that you're
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  Speaker 2: utilizing him in a more efficient, complimentary role as opposed
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  Speaker 2: to anm bell cow role.
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  Speaker 1: How many running backs do you think they keep on
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  Speaker 1: the final fifty three?
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  Speaker 2: Consider that they no longer use fullbacks in their offense,
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  Speaker 2: it kind of opens up a little bit of an
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  Speaker 2: opportunity for them to keep a fourth running back in
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  Speaker 2: a way that they maybe wouldn't have in let's say
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. But I could see four
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  Speaker 2: running back, especially with the idea that a guy like
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  Speaker 2: ty Chandler, for instance, could convince them to keep an
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  Speaker 2: extra running back no matter what because of what he
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  Speaker 2: can do on the special team side, or Devin Neil's
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  Speaker 2: special teams value on the coverage side and things like that.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think four, maybe even five if the
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  Speaker 2: special team's role is really really unique for a player
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  Speaker 2: that is forcing them to keep an extra running back.
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  Speaker 2: But I would be surprised to see them Key, I
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  Speaker 2: would not be surprised to see them keep more than three,
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  Speaker 2: so h and Kamara and then maybe at least a
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  Speaker 2: pair of other guys.
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  Speaker 1: Could you see a scenario where Alvin Kamara goes to
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  Speaker 1: camp and injury aside, does not make the team.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think so, not at that because it's still
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  Speaker 2: an investment that's there on that six million dollars per year.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a pretty solid backup role. Pay Now
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  Speaker 2: you'll do that when you're still saving four and a
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  Speaker 2: half million dollars in the process, but that's still a
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  Speaker 2: pretty good investment. So it would be if that happened,
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  Speaker 2: that would mean that something either very deliberately undelivered happened
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  Speaker 2: on the Alvin Kamara side in terms of performance on
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  Speaker 2: the field, or some other big thing would have had
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  Speaker 2: to have taken place for that to be the case.
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  Speaker 2: I think ninety something percent. Now you could say Alvin
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  Speaker 2: kamaraes on this roster in twenty twenty five or twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty six.
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  Speaker 1: We are a less than two weeks from Saints reporting
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  Speaker 1: for training camp will be a week from Tuesday. Rossill
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  Speaker 1: Ivid covered at Louisiana Sports dot Net and Locked on
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  Speaker 1: Saints so reading for free or listener watch over at
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  Speaker 1: locked on Saints. Okay, dude, we appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks man, Thank you man. You take carestually say thanks
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  Speaker 2: for having me.