The trade deadline arrives on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. ET, and there will be plenty of rumors and chatter between now and then. One player who already is the subject of such rumors and chatter is Saints running back Alvin Kamara.
An unfounded rumor emerged linking him to the Eagles. On Sunday, Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reported that the Bills called about Kamara, but that they were “rebuffed.”
After Sunday’s win by the Saints over the Raiders, I asked Saints defensive end Cam Jordan whether the Kamara trade talk has made its way into the locker room.
“It’s part of the game,” Jordan said. “I mean, there’s always going to be rumors, always going to be whatever. But if anything, that just motivates us to fight more, run harder to run, whatever. I mean, we’ve all had trade rumors be about us. [Alvin] is a consummate pro. I mean that’s not going to [affect] him. If anything, whatever it was, I said, ‘Yo, are you worried?’ He said, ‘Whatever happens, I’m bleeding black and gold.’ That’s all I need to know about it. If something comes up, will we be hurt by his absence? Absolutely. What [he] brings to our offense, what [he] does to another team? You can’t really replace that. At the same time, rumors are rumors, so I’m going to let the media do what the media has always done, speculate, and do whatever they do and we’re going to worry about how we’re going to try to get these next wins.”
Whatever happens, the Saints will keep moving forward. Jordan made that clear when I asked him about the impact of former coach Sean Payton’s departure.
“I mean, how different has it been without Drew [Brees] here, you know?” Jordan said. “How different has it been without Jimmy Graham here? How different has been when John Vilma left the defense? There’s always going to be a come-and-go. You have to deal with what you have to deal with. I can’t imagine this team without Mark Ingram and yet we were there for two years without Mark Ingram. It’s always got to be what do we have on our team now and how can we try and get ahold of these wins? We’re trying to take advantage of what we’re trying to take advantage of. At the end of the day, we came into the game, and we still don’t have Mike [Thomas], we don’t have Jarvis Landry, but Chris Olave has been playing his butt off. We got guys like Marquez Callaway, Tre’Quan [Smith] trying to make up for it. You got guys like tight end Juwan Johnson who guys aren’t talking about enough, doing some of the nitty gritty dirty work and being that wide receiver-type tight end. We’re making do with what we’ve got.”
And they’re finally getting the production from the defense that complements the offense. In a big way. And they’re very much alive in a wide-open NFC South.
