What will the New Orleans Saints do at running back? It’s one position they weren’t able to really address this offseason, with the only new addition being undrafted rookie Abram Smith out of Baylor – who joins a lineup behind Alvin Kamara featuring a late-career Mark Ingram, career special teams player Dwayne Washington, and NFL journeymen Tony Jones Jr. and Devine Ozigbo. The non-Kamara players there combined for just 418 rushing yards in 2021, so yeah, there’s room for improvement. Especially if Kamara is suspended for multiple games following an arrest in Las Vegas early this year.
But where could the Saints turn to find help? Proven, NFL-quality help? With free agency and the draft behind them, their best bet is to work a trade with another team. And Nola.com’s Jeff Duncan reports that they’ve done just that in reaching out to a number of teams to gauge interest in cutting a deal. No new arrivals to New Orleans are expected at this time, but as training camps kick off around the league and teams get a better idea of the state of their depth charts, some dominoes will start to fall.
Duncan suggested six teams as potential trade partners with the Saints, given their depth at the position, so we took a deeper look to see which players could be a plausible match with New Orleans. We’ll worry about the specifics of various trade packages and positional value another day. For now, here are our thoughts on each of those teams and their players under contract:
Buffalo Bills
Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
Devin Singletary
Zack Moss
Taiwan Jones
Duke Johnson
James Cook (rookie)
Raheem Blackshear (rookie)
Singletary is the leading rusher in this group, and Cook has a clear role as a highly-drafted rookie, so Moss is maybe the most interesting player out of the bunch. He has averaged a smooth 31.8 rushing yards per game in Buffalo’s rotation and done his best work in short yardage situations by converting a first down on 23 of 37 career attempts when needing 3 yards or fewer – a conversion rate of 62.2%, just ahead of the 60.8% that New Orleans posted last year. The Saints also called 52.5% of their carries out of the shotgun last season, where Moss has averaged half a yard more per-carry rather than from under center. He’s an efficient scheme fit who the Bills may move without much fuss (Moss was a healthy scratch in several games last year, including Buffalo’s prime-time matchup with New Orleans on…
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