Kamara’s no-practice return evokes memories of Muncie
Saints’ Alvin Kamara sparks (good) memories of Chuck Muncie – just ask Archie Manning.
NEW ORLEANS – Alvin Kamara was not the first multitalented superstar running back for the Saints to gain nearly 100 yards following a week without a lick of practice.
Kamara, who gained 99 yards on 23 carries in New Orleans’ 21-9 win over Chicago in the NFC wild-card playoffs Sunday at the Superdome, missed all practices last week while in COVID-19 quarantine following a positive test just after Christmas.
Chuck Muncie, the third pick of the 1976 draft by the Saints and the first running back chosen, rushed for 92 yards on 17 carries on Oct. 30, 1977, in a 27-26 upset of the Rams in the Superdome after he missed the previous week of practice with what was listed as an ankle injury.
Unlike Kamara, Muncie, a free spirit from California-Berkeley who wore a wide-brimmed straw hat to his first Saints news conference, missed practice frequently when he was healthy and had nothing close to the manic workout regimen of Kamara, who routinely works out with BOSU balls.
Muncie, who died of a heart attack in 2013 at 60 at his home in the Los Angeles area, did not view any film or attend meetings that game week in 1977. Kamara, who had 932 rushing yards in the regular season, watched practice and sat in on meetings through video all week.
“That game didn’t surprise me,” former Saints quarterback Archie Manning said of Muncie’s game against the Rams in a phone interview from his New Orleans home. “Chuck didn’t practice very much anyway. He was just so good. He was such an athlete.”
Even when Muncie was in the team facility, he really wasn’t.
“It wasn’t so much him missing practices,” Manning said. “Chuck made some practices. Chuck just liked to take a little nap during meetings.”
Manning made up for that in strikingly similar fashion to how Saints quarterback Drew Brees tutored Kamara last week.
“I would make sure to have a little study session with Chuck each week,”
Manning said. “Oftentimes on Sunday morning, just to be sure.”
Brees texted Kamara frequently last week.
“As things came up during the week, I just texted him my thoughts. ‘Hey, this is a little nuance. This is a little different. Be ready for this,’ ” Brees said after the game. “So that when he showed up on game day, it wasn’t like a totally foreign game plan. I felt like he handled it really well despite the circumstances.”
Kamara started slowly with 39 yards on eight carries in the first half but gained 60 yards on 15 carries in the second half with a 3-yard touchdown run for a 21-3 lead with 8:50 to play in the game. He added a 25-yard run later in the quarter.
“I couldn’t be there for practice, so we had live streaming,” Kamara said. “Coach Thomas (running backs coach Joel Thomas) was mic’d up, talking me through run looks, pass looks, everything. And I was talking back and forth with Drew all week . ... It (COVID-19) didn’t really affect me – just taste and smell were kind of thrown off a little bit. Other than that, I was fine.”
After cramming the playbook with Manning, Muncie’s versatile 6-foot-3, 227-pound body was usually ready to play with little physical or mental preparation. He led the team in fines from coach Hank Stram for absences and missed flights and in rushing yards while with the Saints from 1976 through 1979 before a trade to San Diego early in the 1980 season.
Former New Orleans Pelicans, Chicago Bulls and University of New Orleans basketball coach Tim Floyd worked at the Saints training camp in 1976 at Vero Beach, Florida, at 22 and was dispatched to pick up Muncie at the airport that summer. He went six times before Muncie finally touched down.
As a rookie, Muncie rushed for 659 yards, then 811 in ’77 before becoming the Saints’ first 1,000-yard rusher in a 42-35 loss to Oakland on “Monday Night Football” on Dec. 3, 1979. He finished with 1,198 in the Saints’ first nonlosing season at 8-8 that year and was MVP of the 1980 Pro Bowl with Manning at quarterback.
Kamara, a third-round pick from Tennessee, rushed for 728 yards and caught 81 passes for another 826 in 2017 to win NFL rookie of the year honors. He has averaged 835 rushing yards and 914 receiving yards in his four-year career.
“Chuck was a great pass receiver, too,” Manning said. “He could do just about anything.”
Muncie caught 118 passes for 1,061 yards in four full seasons with the Saints. He also threw for five touchdowns in his career, including one in that Pro Bowl.
“He could have been one of the greatest of all time. He was so big and fast,” Manning said.
“Muncie is the original fiddling Nero, as carefree a man ever to step into a Saint uniform,” wrote Gil LeBreton in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1977.
“Muncie was an animal on the field,” LeBreton, a former Fort Worth StarTelegram columnist who is editor of PressBoxDFW.com, said last week. “He could’ve been in the Hall of Fame if he took it seriously. He didn’t need practice – just sleep.”
The nightlife of New Orleans and cocaine kept him out. Late in his life as a youth counselor in the Los Angeles area and frequently at Cal, Muncie talked about his cocaine abuse. He served 18 months in jail after being caught selling cocaine in 1989, but it did not seem to impact him much on the field.
After the Saints traded him early in the 1980 season, Muncie gained 1,144 yards with San Diego in 1981 and tied an NFL record with 19 touchdowns. He gained 120 yards in the Chargers’ famous, 41-38 overtime win over Miami in the AFC divisional playoffs on Jan. 2, 1982.
After being suspended by then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1984 following one game because he tested positive for cocaine, he never played again. There was a brief attempt at a comeback in 1985 with Minnesota, where Manning was finishing his career.
Both retired before the 1985 season began.
“It wasn’t fun anymore,” Muncie told The San Diego Union-Tribune more than two decades later. “That’s when I saw the game starting to change. Guys were working out in the offseason.” Muncie barely worked out in season. “He had Hall of Fame talent,” LeBreton said. “It’s a tragedy that he just couldn’t control that part of his life. In many ways, he was the most talented Saints player to that point, including Archie.”
Manning and LeBreton correctly predicted before Sunday’s game that Kamara’s lack of practice would impact him as little as it did Muncie on Oct. 30, 1977, and in other games.
“At this point in the season, they don’t physically practice that much,” Manning said. “And the way Alvin keeps in shape, I don’t think there will be much difference.”
Kamara got more sleep than Muncie, too.
“It helps having that downtime,” he said. “In quarantine, you have no choice but to sit in recovery and get your body back right. I felt good.”
Few played on Sundays with little preparation better than Muncie.
“Could you imagine today a player living like he did, missing practice habitually and falling asleep in meetings as much as he did,” LeBreton said, “and still play as great as he did? He slept in meetings because he never slept. And he was still one of the best.”