Every Reason the Saints Will Not Have a 1,000 Yard Rusher in 2023

Jason Watson Jr • July 21, 2023

An overview of New Orleans' backfield

New Orleans, LA- Having a balanced, efficient running game is important to playing winning football and having success in the NFL, right? That is not necessarily true in the case of the New Orleans Saints.


Over the 55-year course of the franchise, the Saints have had a player rush for 1,000 yards or more a mere 13 times. The last time a running back accomplished the feat while wearing black and gold was in 2017 when Mark Ingram II was head of the backfield committee.


Although current starter Alvin Kamara has run for 850+ in four of his six NFL seasons, he has yet to eclipse the thousand-yard mark. It seems likely that he would be next in line to join the short list of Chuck Muncie (1979), George Rogers (1981, 1983), Rueben Mayes (1986), Dalton Hilliard (1989), Ricky Williams (2000-01), Deuce McAllister (2002-04, 2005), and Ingram (2016-17), but not this season. Not only will Kamara fail to hit 1,000 yards rushing on the season, but no running back in a crowded backfield will hit the bar in 2023 for New Orleans.


The Saints will enter training camp with Kamara, Jamaal Williams, who signed a three-year contract this offseason, and a third-round draft pick, Kendre Miller of TCU. A talented running back room is on display, but could they be overloaded?


A cloud of questions surrounds Kamara about how many opportunities he will get with the ball this season. A possible lengthy suspension looms overhead for the star running back. That, paired with a drop-off in production from last season, is pointing to no signs that Kamara will climb back to the level he was at in 2020 when he tied for second league-wide with 16 touchdowns.


Williams, a 28-year-old halfback, is coming off a career-high 1,066 yards with the Detroit Lions. He should get a large portion of the carries in Kamara’s absence, but will it be enough to reach a thousand throughout the season?


As for Miller, he will enter the league after putting up 1,399 yards in his junior season and helping lead TCU to the National Championship game. The rookie running back led the nation with an active career mark of 6.7 yards per carry. Members of the Saints’ staff believe that Miller will come in and make an impact immediately, but he will compete to see the field much, especially from the third-string role on the depth chart.


The Saints have been an air raid offense for a long time under coach Sean Payton and Drew Brees at the helm under center. New Orleans signed quarterback Derek Carr to a four-year deal this past March. Teams do not typically sign veteran QBs to big-money contracts just to hand the ball off, and it’s more of the same from this roster.


A wide-receiver room stacked with a returning Michael Thomas, blossoming Chris Olave, and speedy guys like Rashid Shaheed and A.T. Perry seems like the perfect recipe for Carr to be successful in his first year throwing in the Big Easy. There are many mouths to feed in the 2023 edition of the Saints’ offense and no shortage of eagerness to play.


If you look back at the history of seasons when New Orleans did have a 1,000-yard rusher on the roster, you find that the success was minimal at best. The Saints only had winning records in five out of those thirteen seasons; they had a .500 record in four seasons. There are differing factors around the league and other roster holes that would leave a lot on the table when thinking about the run game’s effect on team performance, but a thousand yards on the ground will not single-handedly win anything in today’s NFL state. The Saints’ leading runner during their Super Bowl season was Pierre Thomas, only finishing with 793 yards.


While it may be possible for the Saints to have an efficient ground game this season, not one individual from the backfield will reach that summit of a thousand yards. The five-year-long drought will linger on.


Do you think otherwise and believe New Orleans will finish the 2023 campaign with a running back reaching 1,000 yards? If so, who would it be? Let us kneaux what you think!


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