Chris Olave Setting Records as Key Part of Saints Future

The New Orleans Saints haven’t had a lot of success in 2023. Chris Olave, a wide receiver, has produced one of the few. This season, the New Orleans offense has been a challenging and occasionally exasperating team. Their second-year wideout’s performances have been a pleasant constant, though. The former Ohio State standout was selected as the 11th overall pick in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, and he entered the league with great hopes. He has met the majority of those expectations thus far.

LEADING ROLE

Olave, 23, has 81 receptions this season for 1,041 yards and four touchdowns. With 73 catches, Alvin Kamara trails Olave in the standings. But among wide receivers and tight ends in New Orleans, Olave has 40 more catches than the next highest total

(Rashid Shaheed has 41 receptions). Olave has 401 more receiving yards than the second-highest receiving output for the Saints (Shaheed = 640). He has 129 targets, which is more than Kamara (84) and Shaheed (68) combined for the team record. Every week, he has played a significant role in the offensive strategy. Defenses are aware of this, yet he hasn’t stopped producing.

Olave has five 100-yard games this season, including three in the last four contests he’s played. He has at least 85 yards in three more outings. This despite extra defensive attention because injuries to Shaheed and Michael Thomas that depleted the New Orleans receiving corps.

MODEL OF CONSISTENCY

The fourth most targeted receiver in the NFC, Olave has been a consistent producer weekly for an inconsistent New Orleans offense. He has at least five catches in 11 of the 14 games he’s played this season. As noted above, he has at least 85 yards receiving in eight of his 14 appearances this year. In 29 games over his two NFL seasons, Olave has at least four receptions 24 times. He’s eclipsed 50 yards receiving in 21 of those 29 contests.

This was accomplished despite often subpar play from the quarterback position and with one of the most criticized offensive coordinators in the NFL. Olave has also been arguably the only viable option for the Saints at wide receiver. Granted, Shaheed developed into an outstanding game-breaking threat over the last half of his rookie year in 2022. Over the first part of last year, however, he saw the field little. In 2022, Michael Thomas was lost for the year after only three games. Jarvis Landry was well past his prime.

This season, Thomas has been out the last five games of this year and Shaheed missed two of those games. Again, Olave was really the only legitimate threat out of the remaining group of wideouts. Since Thomas has been sidelined, Olave has averaged five catches and 96 yards.

GOOD, GREAT, OR ELITE?

Olave’s numbers speak for themselves. However, he went through a concerning early season slump. He had only one catch despite six targets in an ugly loss to Tampa Bay. Over a six-game stretch that started with that performance, he averaged only 43.5 receiving yards. More concerning than just a decline in production, Olave’s effort, body language, and demeanor were openly questioned. And with good reason.

Given his skills, he should have been able to make multiple plays with ease. Others were throws in which he either blatantly abandoned a play or ran the incorrect route.

To Olave’s credit, he overcame the critical remarks and turned into a remarkable performer. Olave has demonstrated courage and resilience while recovering from a concussion and an ankle injury, the latter of which required him to miss a game. In addition, he has demonstrated his exceptional receiving skills by averaging over seven catches and 95.6 yards in his last five games.

Olave is among the league’s most consistently productive offensive weapons. To be a great, perhaps even elite, receiver, he’ll have to make the plays that separate him from the very good targets.

It’s where the young wideout has come up a little short in his brief career. Chris Olave has flashed the skills of a great NFL wide receiver. Despite a 6-foot and 187-Lb. frame, he doesn’t shy away from contact and performs quite well over the middle. He has great speed to beat defenses deep, but is just as dangerous after the catch as a runner in the open field. Above all, his fluid route running makes him next to impossible to defend for even the league’s top corners.

MAKING HISTORY

Olave became one of just three players in New Orleans team history to surpass 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie last season, along with Thomas and Marques Colston. He left his mark on Saints history books this season. Olave made franchise history in 2023 as he became the fifth player to record at least 70 catches in his first two seasons. In that honor, he was joined by Colston, Reggie Bush, Thomas, and Alvin Kamara. He became the fourth player in the Saints’ history to have 1,000 yards in his first two seasons, following Joe Horn, Colston, and Thomas. As rookies, only Colston, Thomas, and Olave managed to pull it off.

In the history of the Saints franchise, only Chris Olave, Thomas, Brandin Cooks, Colston, Horn, and Eric Martin have had consecutive seasons with 1,000 yards or more in receiving. Olave believes that this is just the start of many records that will be a pillar of the Saints’ future.

Read more on sportupdates.co.uk