Fantasy Football

Alvin Kamara Fantasy Preview

By Boris

Posted on September 4, 2023

Alvin Kamara Fantasy Preview

People have been speculating about a potential Alvin Kamara suspension for about a year and a half. Ever since February of 2022, when Alvin Kamara and others were cited for their roles in an altercation outside a Las Vegas nightclub, we’ve been waiting to find out if and how long Alvin Kamara would be suspended. Considering the dynamic fantasy production Kamara has enjoyed in the NFL from season to season, knowing how long he will be gone has been paramount to assessing his potential fantasy value in 2023. Well, we now have it, Alvin Kamara is suspended for the first 3 weeks of the season.

Depending on your league’s setup, Kamara’s suspension is likely 20-25% of your league’s regular season. While that number may sound low, it now becomes necessary to weigh that into to Kamara’s ADP and determine when the appropriate time to draft him is, if at all.

Latest Odds

Most regular season rushing TDs +4,000 (bet365)
Most regular season rushing yards +3,000 (bet365)
Offensive Player of the Year + +15,000 (BetMGM)

*At the time of this writing, many sites are not offering Kamara props.

None of those lines interest me. The likelihood of Kamara achieving any of the bets is quite close to zero.

Current ADP

ADP – 73*
RB ADP – 30*

I threw asterisks next to the ADP numbers because Kamara’s ADP is a little all over the map depending on what site you use. I have seen sites have him as high as RB16 and others as low as RB40. As we get closer to the start of the season, I expect his ADP to settle down a little, but like any player, you’ll need to decide at what point Alvin Kamara becomes a value to your fantasy team.

Fantasy Insight

For starters, my breakdown of the Saints organization from a coaching and offensive line standpoint is something you should check out if you haven’t already. Even though Kamara’s sentence has been handed down, what we need to admit to ourselves is that this offensive line has gaps, there are other RBs in the backfield, and Kamara is already on the back half of his career.

Last season Kamara carried the ball 223 times for 897 yards. That was good for 4 yards a carry. He was also targeted 77 times of which he hauled in 57 for 490 yards. The alarming number though was his touchdowns as he had only 4 of them, 2 rushing and 2 receiving. While TDs vary from season to season, I believe his TD regression was largely due to the state of the offense. If we use standard (non PPR) scoring, Alvin Kamara put up 162.7 points. If we use that as a base for 2023 and knock off 25% for his suspension, we get a total of 122.

While fantasy points fluctuate from year to year, I’d argue that this is a decent base that we can use to assess Kamara’s upcoming fantasy points. Depending on when your fantasy playoffs are and if you consider the Saints Week 11 bye, that would give Kamara roughly 10 games to achieve that number. That’s 12.2 fantasy points per game, which probably means he has to score a TD to get over that number in any given week. Since he only got 4 last year, that means there are going to be a few weeks when Kamara scores single digit fantasy points.

I would further argue that the presence of Jamaal Williams and Kendre Miller will eat into Kamara’s workload, which given his age makes sense as well.

Fantasy Value

You would have to be insane to draft Kamara prior to 73 overall as RB30, and I really hope I’m in leagues where my competition does that. If he falls to something like 100, I still want nothing to do with him. When I further factor in the mediocre Saints offense to all the aspects of this situation, then drafting Kamara is not a headache I am prepared to deal with. Even when week 4 roles around, it’s not like we are getting the Alvin Kamara of a few years ago coming in to save the day. How frustrated are Kamara owners going to be when he only gets 8-12 touches in week 4?

Dynasty Value

Nope.

Bold Prediction

Alvin Kamara scores less than 120 fantasy points in 2023. *This is my personal opinion, which may or may not reflect site projections.*

Boris

Matt, aka Boris, had a friend in his high school freshman English class once mistakenly call him that, and the nickname has somehow stuck ever since. He has been playing fantasy football since the early 2000s and Daily Fantasy Sports since 2015. Boris has been writing about DFS since 2020 and is excited to be a part of GridIron Experts. He has a wife (proving someone can stand him) and a daughter. Boris loves the beach, skiing, hockey, soccer, and football. He attempts to teach high school English, and aspires to make a ton of money in DFS. Follow him on Twitter @Borisnow00.