Last season, Chris Olave was one of the best picks in fantasy football. He overcame a rough offensive situation to post WR1 numbers. Now another year into Kellen Moore’s fantasy-friendly offense, the New Orleans Saints WR1 has all the tools necessary to make the leap from very good wide receiver to great one.
Should You Draft Chris Olave in Fantasy Football?
We knew Olave was going to be good after his rookie season when he recorded 1,042 yards. The track record of wide receivers who eclipse 900 yards as rookies is very positive.
At the beginning, everything looked to be on track. Olave averaged 13.2 fantasy points per game as a rookie and then 14.5 PPG as a sophomore. He was progressing quite naturally, and a year three leap was baked into his 2024 ADP. Then, the wheels fell off.
Olave’s production plummeted. He dealt with a medley of injuries, most notably the multiple concussions that threatened to derail his career. In just eight games, Olave averaged 9.6 PPG, raising serious questions about his WR1 upside. In retrospect, the fantasy community should have given more respect to his first two seasons and written off the third as an outlier.
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The Saints made a bunch of offensive changes in 2025, the most significant of which was hiring Kellen Moore as their head coach. Moore has been successful everywhere he’s coached, with his offenses consistently ranking among the league’s best in scoring.
Predictably, the Saints struggled to start last season as they were very much figuring things out. Spencer Rattler started the first half before giving way to Tyler Shough, and that’s when things started to turn around.
Overall, the Saints ranked 28th in scoring. And even if you split it up by Rattler vs. Shough, you will come away thinking negatively about this offense.
- Team PPG in Rattler starts: 18.5 PPG
- Team PPG in Shough starts: 16.3 PPG
The difference was what happened over the final month of the season. Everything started to click. The Saints won four of their last five, averaging 24.8 PPG. Moore’s system started to take Hold. Shough started to play better. And this looked like a team that could’ve made the playoffs if only they’d figured it out sooner.
Olave was the primary beneficiary of this. He had been producing all season. You don’t get to 16.8 PPG with just a month’s worth of production. But his numbers really started to take off when the offense clicked.
Olave had five games of 20+ fantasy points last year. Three of them came in Weeks 15-17. That resonates with fantasy managers.
Overall, Olave’s season had a lot of positives. He overcame a bad situation for most of the year. He dominated targets with a 29.4% target share. He posted a yards-per-route run rate over 2.0 for the fourth consecutive season. And most importantly, he stayed on the field, playing 16 games. In an improving situation with minimal target competition, Olave looks like a great bet for 2026 and beyond.
Olave’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
Typically, when wide receivers who were once thought of very highly have a rebound season, as Olave did, their price skyrockets. While Olave is significantly more expensive now than he was last year, he’s not prohibitively expensive.
Olave’s ADP sits around WR11. That’s lower than where he finished last season. It makes sense, though. There are a lot of strong wide receivers at the top. It’s difficult to get Olave much higher. That’s what makes him such a great pick.
We saw the ceiling case for Olave. He averaged 14.9 PPG with Rattler and 18.2 PPG with Shough. If we can get a full season of the Shough production, he will smash his current ADP.
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Olave’s situation in New Orleans is pretty awesome for fantasy. He’s the clear WR1 and unquestioned top target on the team. His primary competition consists of rookie Jordyn Tyson and tight end Juwan Johnson.
Typically, more competition is never good for a wide receiver. However, Tyson and Olave occupy very different roles. The Saints didn’t really have a single viable pass catcher other than Olave last season. If Tyson pans out, he will consolidate all of the targets that went to the ancillary players. He won’t steal from Olave.
We have an ascending quarterback in Shough, who is more of a veteran than his year-two status would suggest. We have one of the brightest offensive minds in the NFL calling plays. And we have a dome team in a division that is conducive to shootouts.
The stage is set for Olave to go from WR1 to elite WR1. He is my WR13. Even though that’s a bit below consensus, he is still someone I am targeting in 2026 fantasy drafts.
Olave’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
The expected further ascent in redraft carries over into the dynasty side of things. Olave is 26 years old, firmly in his prime. We are at least five years away from any questions about a decline. Outside of the blip in 2024, Olave has improved every year of his career. If that 2024 season never happened, he would likely be even higher than our WR11 rank.
There is a slight system risk with Olave in that we don’t know if Shough is the Saints’ answer at quarterback. He’s going to get the entire 2026 season to prove he is without any risk of being benched, and he did show promise last season, but it’s far from a certainty.
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Even so, Olave is young enough that the Saints could take the 2027 to figure things out, and he’d still only be 28 in 2028.
At worst, Olave should be a mid-to-high WR2. That would be a moderately negative return on investment based upon his current value and the expectations we have of him, but it’s hard to see him completely torpedoing your lineup. Meanwhile, the upside case is substantial. A further ascent could see him push closer to the 20 PPG range. It would not be a shock if, by this time next year, we’re talking about Olave as one of the best wide receivers in fantasy.
