Travis Etienne exits Saints' loss with hamstring injury after 57-yard day
Etienne led New Orleans with 57 rushing yards on 13 carries before grabbing his left hamstring and heading to the locker room in a 35-27 loss.
Hamstring severity unknown — monitor his practice status this week.
- Team-high 57 rush yards on 13 carries before exit
- Added 13 receiving yards on 2 catches
- Signed 4-year, $52M deal with Saints this offseason
- Shough threw 4 TD passes in the loss
- Saints fell to 1-2; Raiders improved to 3-0
Travis Etienne's afternoon ended in the medical tent. Taking a second-half handoff and breaking for the right sideline in the Superdome, the Saints back suddenly reached for his left hamstring, got knocked out of bounds and limped off. New Orleans quickly ruled him questionable to return, and he never came back in the 35-27 loss to Las Vegas.
Before the injury, Etienne was cooking. He led the Saints with 57 rushing yards on 13 carries and chipped in another 13 yards on two grabs — a strong follow-up to the 71 rushing yards he'd totaled across his first two games with New Orleans. The 27-year-old joined the Saints this offseason on a four-year, $52 million deal after four seasons in Jacksonville, so this is a meaningful body to lose.
The good news for the offense: the Saints didn't skip a beat immediately. Right after Etienne's 16-yard scamper in the third quarter, Tyler Shough hit Noah Fant for a 16-yard touchdown to make it 27-16. That was Shough's fourth scoring throw of the day — he'd already found Fant from three yards out and connected twice with Juwan Johnson on short scores.
Then the wheels came off. New Orleans coughed up four fourth-quarter turnovers, and Las Vegas surged back to grab an eight-point win. That pushed the Raiders to 3-0, their best start since 2021, and dropped the Saints to 1-2.
The Fantasy Fallout
No specifics on the hamstring yet, which is the frustrating part. Hamstrings are notoriously sticky, and a running back's game leans entirely on burst — the exact thing a strained hammy steals. Etienne managers need to treat this as a real week-to-week concern until the Saints put a label on it.
The passing-game beneficiaries are worth a look. Shough is trending up, averaging 4.6 fantasy points above his season line over his last five games in 2025 (170 PPR points across 11 games), and a four-TD outing keeps him streamable in deeper formats. Johnson remains the tight end to own here — our No. 8 TE with 180 PPR points across 17 games in 2025 — while Fant is more of a touchdown-dependent flier, sitting 4.3 fantasy points below his 2025 average over his last five.
Bottom line: don't drop Etienne, but don't assume he's fine either. Handcuff his backfield if you can and watch this week's practice reports closely before deciding on your Week 4 lineup.
