Saturday's transaction wire carried one subtraction and one near-milestone. The Patriots placed veteran receiver Mack Hollins on injured reserve with a calf injury, and the Saints' Alvin Kamara sits five receiving yards from a round number that almost nobody reaches.
Start with New England, because that move costs snaps the Patriots have to give to somebody. My read is that they promote from within rather than sign a replacement, and that the targets Hollins was drawing get redistributed among the receivers already in the building. It's the cheap move, and it's the one I'd expect in October, when the wire is about surviving weeks rather than winning them. It can still bite. If the room behind him turns out to be bodies instead of depth, New England's passing game gets narrower and opposing secondaries get to simplify. Watch the target distribution in the Patriots' next game. That's where the answer shows up, and it won't take long.
Now the fun one. Kamara has 7,324 career rushing yards and 4,995 receiving, so five more through the air makes him the sixth NFL player ever to reach 5,000 in both. The number I keep circling is the rushing one. Kamara's game gets talked about as pass-catching, and 7,324 on the ground says the receiving half is the smaller part of what he's actually been. New Orleans has been running its offense through him in both directions, and the 4,995 is the proof, not the ceiling.
I expect him to clear five yards inside the first quarter of the Saints' next game, on a checkdown or a designed screen, because that's the cheapest five yards in football and New Orleans has no reason to wait. What would make me wrong is an early script that keeps him between the tackles, in which case the milestone waits until the second half and the broadcast graphics people get a longer shift.
Step back and these two items are the same league story from opposite ends. New England is managing attrition in October, where the only question is whether the next man up can hold a role he didn't win in camp. New Orleans is measuring a career, where the question is whether the touches are still coming to a back who has already banked most of the yardage he needs.
Attrition news is usually noise and milestone news is usually decoration. Not here. The Hollins IR stint hands real snaps to a receiver who hasn't had them, and that's a role audition the Patriots didn't schedule. The Kamara item is a formality in the box score, but 7,324 and 4,995 together describe a back whose receiving usage hasn't decayed even as the rushing total piled up, and that combination is the whole reason the list he's about to join is so short.
My verdict: the New Orleans side is the better story and the Patriots' side is the more consequential one. Milestones look like decoration right up until the number is rare, and 5,000 and 5,000 is rare. But Hollins' injury lowers New England's floor this month, and I don't think the Patriots replace him from outside. If they don't, and the passing game narrows by Thanksgiving, this is the Saturday it started.
