NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- It’s not as simple as flipping a switch.

But it sure looked like that’s exactly what Alvin Kamara did halfway through the New Orleans Saints' 38-28 victory at Tennessee on Sunday.

“Yeah, a little bit,” Kamara agreed after he scored his first two touchdowns since Week 3 -- a 40-yard run in the third quarter, followed by a 1-yard run on the next drive. “Just to get that burst back. Just get it back going. Like I said last week, I think it’s just a race every week to be as close to 100% as you can, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

Kamara acknowledged that he has been trying to get that sensation back ever since he missed two games with knee and ankle injuries in Weeks 7-8.

And you could tell that he was starting to feel like his old self on another vintage Kamara play in the third quarter. He took a short pass near the sideline, then turned back upfield and made a guy whiff on his way to a 14-yard gain.

“Yeah, it felt good. It felt good. That was one of the plays that I’m used to having and I just haven’t had these past couple weeks,” Kamara said. “I think I'm just a little bit healthier, I’m feeling better.”

If that’s the case, the timing couldn’t be better as the Saints (12-3) head into the playoffs. This offense could be awfully dangerous with quarterback Drew Brees, receiver Michael Thomas, tight end Jared Cook and Kamara all in peak form at the same time.

Up until Sunday, something had just been a tad off with Kamara since he returned from the injuries. He was no longer making the first tackler miss in the same prolific fashion as he had been before the injury.

Through the first four weeks of the season, Kamara ranked third among all NFL running backs with 192 yards after first contact, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Over his next eight games, he had a total of 183.

Kamara had even started to run out of bounds instead of challenging defenders -- something that seemed especially out of character for the dynamic runner/receiver, who has made such a habit of eluding tackles, spinning out of them and leaping over them during his three-year career.

It reached a new low point early in the second quarter Sunday when Kamara stepped out of bounds a good two to three yards away from the nearest defender for a 7-yard gain on second-and-15.

“I just thought the guy was on me, so I just ran out of bounds,” Kamara explained after the game.

But then came the switch. And it actually seemed to be triggered on a play when Kamara didn’t even touch the ball.

Kamara made a terrific block all the way down the field in front of Cook’s 61-yard touchdown catch late in the second quarter.

“Even if I'm not scoring or touching the ball, I have a job to do,” Kamara said.

“He’s very unselfish, and it’s good to see him have some success,” said Saints coach Sean Payton, who insisted two weeks ago that Kamara was “too talented a player” to be held in check for long and that “his best football this season’s ahead of him.”

Kamara hadn’t been playing poorly, necessarily. He has 758 rushing yards and 515 receiving yards in just 13 games played (an average of 97.9 yards from scrimmage). His 4.7 yards per carry are now more than the 4.6 he averaged last season. And he needs just three more catches in Week 17 at Carolina to set a career high for receptions (he had 81 in each of his first two seasons).

But Kamara admitted that he has been battling to get back to 100 percent health throughout the second half of this season. And, of course, he said he would like to score more touchdowns. He had 18 of them last year and 14 of them as a rookie in 2017 before his surprising drop to four this year.

Kamara, however, laughed off some of the social media theories he has seen -- including the popular idea that his spirits are down because he misses former backfield-mate Mark Ingram so much.

“I mean, that’s my boy, but it’s not like my football career is over now that me and Mark split up,” Kamara said two weeks ago.

Then when I asked him Sunday about the criticism he has drawn on social media for avoiding contact in recent weeks, Kamara said, “I want somebody that’s tweeting that to come out here and get hit every weekend and then say that. But it doesn’t really faze me what people say.”

Everyone will be a lot more satisfied, though, if Sunday’s game was a sign of things to come.

“I’m sure in a way, [Kamara’s lack of touchdowns] weighs on all of us,” Brees said. “Because he’s such a big part of our offense and what we do, and he’s highly productive. Typically with that comes touchdowns. That’s a product of the productivity. For one reason or another, he just hadn’t gotten in the end zone for a while.

“But I hope we broke that seal. Obviously he got in twice today, and hopefully there’s a lot more where that came from.”