New Orleans Saints wide receiver Chris Olave amassed over 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie. Firmly entrenched as the Saints’ WR1, is Olave ready to ascend to the ranks of the elite? What is his fantasy football projection?
Get a trade offer in your dynasty or redraft league? Not sure who to start or sit this week? Leverage PFN’s FREE fantasy tools — the Fantasy Football Trade Analyzer and Calculator and Start/Sit Optimizer! Put the finishing touch on your A+ draft with 1 of our 425+ fantasy football team names.
Chris Olave’s 2023 Fantasy Projection
I will be the first to admit I was skeptical of Olave as an NFL prospect. As a general rule, I don’t like wide receivers that spend four years in college. I wasn’t out on Olave, but he wasn’t someone I actively sought to draft.
But after his rookie season, not only am I all in on Olave, but he’s my No. 1 “my guy” for the 2023 season.
To have any realistic shot at being fantasy relevant going forward, we need rookie receivers to reach 500 yards. Olave doubled that. He caught 72 of 119 targets for 1,042 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 13.2 PPR fantasy points per game.
What I love about Olave is he wasn’t just a possession guy. He displayed incredible downfield prowess. His 14.0-yard average depth of target was inside the top 10, and his 29 deep targets were the fourth-most in the league.
As a rookie, Olave saw a 26.7% target share, which was inside the top 15, and was targeted on 29.3% of routes run (inside the top 10). And he did this all with mostly Andy Dalton and Jameis Winston at quarterback.
Should You Draft Olave This Year?
We know the talent and opportunity are there for Olave. The primary concern is situation, but that’s shaping up to be much better this season. We already know Olave can basically post low WR2 numbers in a bad situation. Now, dare I say, he has a good one.
Derek Carr should help things a ton. Carr averaged 9.4 air yards per attempt last season, the second-most in the league. While he only completed 32% of his downfield throws, nearly 60% of those passes were catchable. That’s on the receivers. Olave should be able to come down with plenty of them.
Olave is also poised for a massive target share. Michael Thomas is back, but he’s on the wrong side of 30 and hasn’t been healthy in four years. Thomas’ talent didn’t disappear, but similar to Julio Jones, his body appears to have decided he’s done.
This is Olave’s team now.
Beyond Thomas, the Saints’ wide receivers consist of Rashid Shaheed, Tre’Quan Smith, rookie A.T. Perry, and journeymen James Washington and Bryan Edwards. Shaheed is interesting, but none of these WRs are threats to Olave’s volume.
Olave currently has a WR13 ADP, No. 29 overall. He’s my WR11, but it’s a strong WR11. There are very few scenarios where I’d let him get out of the second round and none where he’d reach the middle of the third round.Following a WR25 finish last year, obviously, progression is baked into Olave’s price. But I’m fine paying for it.
Olave looks like a WR1 this season, and I’d be very surprised if he averages fewer than 16 ppg. I intend to draft as much Olave as I can this season and encourage you all to do the same.