Alvin Kamara, Pierre Thomas make up Saints’ exclusive 5K Club

Just two players in New Orleans Saints franchise history have passed this unique milestone (or 2.8 miles’ stone) by picking up 2,500 or more yards as a runner and another 2,500-plus yards as a receiver: Pierre Thomas and Alvin Kamara. They are the only players in team history to sprint past the 5,000 total and leave their mark on the Saints record books.

Now, that’s not to say they are the two best to ever do it in New Orleans (though Kamara’s historically-great rate of scoring touchdowns gives him a shot). What it does mean is that few players have managed to be just as effective on passing plays as they were on running downs for the Saints. Let’s compare them:

How does that stack up against their peers? Deuce McAllister and Mark Ingram, for example, both got deep into the 7,000’s despite only averaging 21 to 22% of their production in the passing game. So while there’s some goalpost moving going on here, it’s done to illustrate just how impressive (and rare!) true dual-threat running backs like Kamara and Thomas have been in the NFL.

Kamara is in a great spot to continue to raise the bar. While he’s still chasing his first 1,000 yards season as a rusher, he’s rapidly closing the gap with Thomas and should come close to totaling 4,000 yards on the ground in 2021. He’s on pace to reach 4,000 receiving yards in 2022. When it’s all said and done, he’ll have a strong claim to just about every Saints record in the books.

While it’s worth acknowledging that Kamara is one of the most exciting players in the NFL today, and wondering whether he’s on a Hall of Fame trajectory, we should also take a second to give Thomas his flowers. He did a lot to shape the dual-threat blueprint Kamara has perfected. There were similar flashes in the pan throughout the Sean Payton era, but Thomas outlasted all of them: big names like Reggie Bush and Darren Sproles, and also-rans like Travaris Cadet.

All of them had their moments and even streaky greatness in the passing game, but Thomas was the only one to sustain his playmaking ability as a runner, too. His sense of timing and vision on designed screens really paved the way for Kamara to set the league on fire, and he deserves more credit for innovating Sean Payton’s playbook. He thoroughly earned this spot in New Orleans’ 5K Club. It’s fitting that his most iconic play was a 16-yard grab-and-go to score the Saints’ first touchdown in Super Bowl XLIV.

For the curious, here are the players who came up just shy of joining them, instead making the cut for the 4K Club by racking up at least 2,000 yards as both a runner and receiver: