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Saints RB Alvin Kamara makes NFL history vs. Giants
New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Saints RB Alvin Kamara makes NFL history vs. Giants

New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara ran into NFL history at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. 

Alvin Kamara makes NFL history

In the third quarter of the Saints game against the New York Giants, Kamara caught a short pass from second-year quarterback Tyler Shough and turned it into a 31-yard touchdown, giving his team a 17-10 lead. He's now in extraordinary company. 

Kamara became one of six players with 5,000 career rushing and receiving yards. (He entered Sunday's game with 7,336 career rushing yards and 4,989 receiving yards.) The others are: San Francisco 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey, former Giants RB Tiki Barber, former St. Louis Rams RB Marshall Faulk, former Los Angeles Raiders RB Marcus Allen and former Baltimore Colts RB Lenny Moore. 

Three of these players are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Faulk, Allen and Moore. Will Kamara join them in Canton?

How does this milestone impact Alvin Kamara's HOF chances? 

It should help, but it won't push him into HOF territory. Pro Football Reference's HOF monitor—a metric designed to estimate a player's chances of making the HOF—gives Kamara a 44.30 score, below average for a RB. The average score for RBs is 105.61. Allen (94.24), Moore (99.85) and Faulk (111.6) all have marks above 90. 

The problem for 10th-year veteran Kamara is that he has been named a second-team All-Pro twice but never a first-team All-Pro. Hall of Fame RBs usually earn one during their careers. For example, former Cleveland Browns RB Leroy Kelly — who has fewer career rushing yards (7,274) than Kamara — was selected first-team All-Pro three times. He's in the HOF.  

Kamara, surprisingly, has never rushed for 1,000 yards in a season, either. That also hurts his chances. 

Even so, Saints fans will always consider Kamara one of the best players in franchise history, whether he makes the HOF or not. Watching him keep hitting career milestones has been one of the few enjoyable parts of the post-Sean Payton-Drew Brees era for those in New Orleans. 

Clark Dalton

Clark Dalton is a 2022 journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He gained experience in sports media over the past seven years — from live broadcasting and creating short films to podcasting and producing. In college, he wrote for The Daily Texan. He loves sports and enjoys hiking, kayaking and camping.

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