Canal Street Chronicles
A deep dive into New Orleans options at RB this season.
The New Orleans Saints enter the 2025 season in a new era, with some lower expectations, but also some high hopes. They have a new head coach as well as two young quarterbacks in Tyler Shough and Spencer Rattler that they feel pretty good about. The national media may be low on the Saints, but there are positive vibes in the building and fanbase.
When the Saints hired Kellen Moore to be their next head coach, the expectation was that he’ll step in and improve the offense immediately. Even with Derek Carr retiring, the expectation is that they’ll be much improved from the product they rolled out last year, even with two young quarterbacks.
If the Saints want to get to where they want to be offensively, they need to be much better in the run game. Last year, their running backs averaged 4.0 yards per carry, which isn’t the worst, but it isn’t good enough, especially considering the ran the ball just 26 times per game, which was 20th in the league. However, they’ve improved their offensive line and brought in a couple young pieces at running back that should give them a boost on the ground.
Here’s a dive into the Saints 2025 running back room.
The Saints currently have six running backs on their roster, and I think only two of them are locks to make the 53-man roster, Alvin Kamara and Devin Neal.
I don’t think I need to go into much detail on why Kamara is a lock. He’s one of the most productive running backs in the league each year and he’s getting paid a lot of money. Unless there’s an unexpected trade, I think it’s impossible for him to not be on the roster at the start of the year.
Devin Neal is a bit less of a lock, but a lock all the same in my mind. They didn’t spend a high draft pick on Neal, but he probably should’ve been a fourth or fifth round pick and is going to get some run this season. He was super productive in college and can catch passes and block. He does everything well, which should make him a lock to make the team.
I think all four of the remaining guys are battling it out for two more roster spots. Last year, the Saints carried four backs most of the time, but with guys coming on and off IR, they had five guys rotating through their roster.
The Saints have Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who is probably the most likely guy to make the roster from this group. They signed him to a one-year deal earlier this offseason after adding him to their roster late in the 2024 season. He’s the veteran of this group, so if they want to play it safe, he could get a spot.
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