Alvin Kamara will be entering his 10th NFL season. Except for the 2023 season, the New Orleans Saints running back hasn’t missed any of the Week 1 games of his NFL career. However, the consistent run of appearing in the season opener might be jeopardized again as fresh reports reveal his injury timeline.
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“Saints RB Alvin Kamara is expected to be sidelined for at least the next month due to a sprained MCL, per source,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter wrote on X.
The incident took place on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, during a physical, scrimmage-style joint practice session with the Dallas Cowboys at The Star in Frisco, Texas.
Per the reports, during a scrimmage period, Kamara absorbed a hard, heavy hit to his knee area. The sudden nature of the contact forced him to exit the field alongside the Saints’ medical staff. Although there was immediate panic that he had suffered a season-ending ACL tear, the latest update says otherwise.
Still, a sprained medial collateral ligament (MCL) means Kamara is projected to be out for at least a month. And this would also complicate the New Orleans Saints RB’s availability for the Week 1 matchup against the Detroit Lions on September 13.
If Alvin Kamara fails to recover, this would be the second time he will be missing an NFL regular season opener game for the second time. The last time it happened was during the 2023 season, when he was serving a three-game NFL suspension stemming from a February 2022 off-field altercation in Las Vegas.
In Kamara’s place, the Saints started Jamaal Williams for that game, which they won in a close affair with a scoreline of 16-15 against the Tennessee Titans. Yet, the experienced running game was something that the team missed in that matchup.
And the same would likely happen when New Orleans enters Ford Field in Detroit on September 13 without their veteran RB who boasts exactly 7,250 rushing yards and 61 touchdowns in 126 regular season games.
This time, in Kamara’s place, newly signed Travis Etienne Jr. will ascend to the high-volume workhorse role at least for the Week 1 clash against the Lions.
Etienne Jr. is entering his first season with the New Orleans Saints and his sixth NFL season overall after spending his first five NFL seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars. In 66 regular-season games with Jacksonville, he rushed 897 times for 3,798 yards and 25 touchdowns.
How well Etienne Jr. transitions under New Orleans HC Kellen Moore will be interesting to see. But amid that, Kamara’s knee injury, which was expected to be a season-ending ACL tear, was instead a sprained MCL, which would at least give a sigh of relief to the Saints fandom.