{"id":691824,"date":"2026-05-24T16:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/691824\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T16:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:47:09","slug":"alvin-kamara-thrills-tennessee-banana-ball-crowd-amid-uncertain-nfl-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/691824\/","title":{"rendered":"Alvin Kamara thrills Tennessee Banana Ball crowd amid uncertain NFL future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Star NFL<\/a> running back Alvin Kamara<\/a> has earned favorite son status in Knoxville, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

The former Tennessee Volunteer<\/a> emerged as a rookie of the year and five-time Pro Bowler for the New Orleans Saints<\/a> after leaving the college football<\/a> ranks in 2016.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s why a crowd of 101,000 fans went crazy at the sight of Kamara during the Savannah Bananas<\/a> game on Saturday at Neyland Stadium.<\/p>\n

MORE: Giants\u2019 Abdul Carter calls out Jaxson Dart for Donald Trump rally appearance<\/a><\/p>\n

Kamara entered the game in the first inning as a pinch-runner and trotted to the plate<\/a> on a home run by the Bananas\u2019 Dan Oberst. The Texas Tailgaters earned a 4-3 victory over Savannah before the second-largest crowd<\/a> in Banana Ball history.<\/p>\n

After being introduced, Kamara came skipping onto the field to hype up the crowd. As he got to first base, Kamara faked a hamstring injury before launching into a dance battle with Bananas first-base dance coach Maceo Harrison to \u201cWalk It Out\u201d by DJ Unk.<\/p>\n

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Kamara\u2019s contract status<\/p>\n

The reception he got Saturday in Tennessee probably felt especially good for the 30-year-old Kamara considering his uncertain NFL future.<\/p>\n

The nine-year pro is entering the final year of his contract<\/a> after a subpar 2025 season. Kamara missed the final six games of the campaign after suffering an MCL sprain on Nov. 23. He finished with career lows in rushing yards (471) and receiving yards (178) and scored just one touchdown.<\/p>\n

Last week, Saints GM Mickey Loomis was noncommittal about Kamara\u2019s future in New Orleans<\/a>. The versatile back has a $10.5 million cap hit for 2026 and is a candidate for release after June 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to see how he\u2019s going to fit on our roster,\u201d Loomis said, per NFL.com<\/a>. \u201cObviously there\u2019s a resource management element to it. We\u2019ll get to that over the next week or two.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star NFL running back Alvin Kamara has earned favorite son status in Knoxville, Tennessee. The former Tennessee Volunteer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[5370,28663,64,63,2490,1274,6310,10289,3879,1249,593,237120,85,973],"class_list":["post-691824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-abdul-carter","tag-alvin-kamara","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-jaxson-dart","tag-knoxville","tag-mickey-loomis","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfl","tag-savannah-bananas","tag-sports","tag-tennessee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}