This feels wrong. It just does. Even the greatest of things come to an end, especially in a business as cutthroat as professional sports, but you simply can't convince me that one of the coolest and most captivating running back tandems of all time didn't meet it's demise prematurely. It was always going to suck when I no longer had their shared postgame interviews to look forward to. However, being of the half-educated belief that if free agency was simulated 100 times over that 99 of those times would lead to Mark Ingram spending approximately the next three years seamlessly playing off Alvin Kamara, both on and off the field, makes this split suck harder than the most disconcerting of pornographic images. Considering the context clues - be it the timing of his replacement, the rumored demands of an agent who was playing hardball, or the more than manageable discrepancy between what he eventually got from the Baltimore and what he was offered by New Orleans - I just can't shake the feeling that this officially disproves the idiotic notion that everything happens for a reason. Mark Ingram is supposed to be a Saint, making the fact that he no longer is that much harder to digest...
At the end of the day, it's impossible not to behold the beauty of a bond that was forged so fluidly that it got one of the all-time greats at their position shipped out of town in no more than a few weeks time. Mark Ingram welcomed the emergence of Alvin Kamara with both figurative and literal open arms, as the two instantaneously became brothers/best friends while in the process of becoming record-setting backfield mates. That friendship obviously isn't fleeting, but what had become a charming, bi-weekly look into it sure is. The culture in New Orleans can't be attributed to one man, but Mark Ingram was definitely a leader to what became a selfless and cohesive locker room in what he did for Alvin Kamara, as well as what he allowed Alvin Kamara to do for him. I'm near certain the Saints will be fine in leaning on Latavius Murray to help lighten a heavier load for one of the most dynamic and versatile playmakers in football. However, what the ladder has with the guy that the former is replacing is so much more special than 'fine'. Therefore, it's going to take a while before I feel fine about no longer having a first hand look at the deeeetails of boom and zoom buddying up on or around the football field, because almost everything about the situation, other than its result, tells me the opportunity for them to do so beat overwhelming odds in being missed.
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