​Usually, when a player is under contract with a team, there isn’t much drama about whether he will be playing for that team. When there is, it is sometimes a contract dispute, and the player and organization try to work it out. At other times, the team is looking to trade the player, and fields offers for him.What is unheard of is a team having an apparent problem with the franchise’s all-time-offense leader’s contract but refusing to negotiate with him or do anything about it at all.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementYet, that is what the Saints are doing with Alvin Kamara.In the 2025 season, Kamara had a down year. The five-time Pro Bowler failed to reach 700 yards from scrimmage and scored only one touchdown. It was the first time that Kamara recorded less than 1,000 yards from scrimmage in his nine-year career.Kamara’s low marks can be partially attributed to him missing the last six games of the year to injury. However, Kamara also recorded his by-far lowest average yards per touch at 4.0. Kamara was on pace to record 831 yards from scrimmage across a seventeen-game span, still far below 1,000 yards.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAfter Kamara’s Week 11 MCL sprain in late November, there was no relevant news on him until March.On March 6, the Saints converted $10.155 million of Alvin Kamara’s base salary into a quasi-signing bonus using the 50% rule. This special conversion allowed them to free up cap space for the 2026 season without giving Kamara any more guaranteed money than he was already due.As Saints reporter Nick Underhill noted, Justin Reid, Juwan Johnson, and Chase Young did not do this conversion, but did the standard signing bonus conversion, which does increase guarantees. Thus, with only one year remaining on his contract, it seems the Saints had it in their mind that Kamara may not be with them for the 2026 season.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThree days later, the Saints announced they were signing free agent RB Travis Etienne Jr. to a four-year, $52 million contract. The signing of Etienne, a Louisiana high school standout, was part of a larger effort to improve the weapons around sophomore QB Tyler Shough.That same day, NFL reporter Adam Schefter posted on X that “there now are questions around the league” about Alvin Kamara’s future in New Orleans and his trade status, and that “teams are tracking and wondering about it.”On March 12, Saints Head Coach Kellen Moore avoided giving any direct answer to questions about Kamara’s future, saying merely, “We’ll go through that whole process,” “We love Alvin,” and “Alvin means a lot to us.”On March 30, at the 2026 NFL Owners Meetings, Moore continued to speak vaguely and indirectly regarding Kamara’s future. However, he did say that Kamara “is on the roster and part of that running back room.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementFor all of April, there was no news on Kamara.On May 4, Kamara spoke for the first time,