Chris

Olave

Per Underhill, the blood clot was “caught early before anything bad could happen and will be fine.” That is a major relief. ESPN’s Adam Schefter later added that Olave is expected to be sidelined for a month, meaning his offseason routine shouldn’t be affected. Olave’s fourth season comes to an end with 100 receptions for 1,163 yards and nine touchdowns. All three of those marks are career-highs. He finished the fantasy football season as the WR6. Olave has always been a good target-earner, but he hit a new level in 2025, logging a 30 percent target share despite needing to develop chemistry with two quarterbacks throughout the year. Both Spencer Rattler and Tyler Shough, who can be penciled in as the team’s starter for 2026, locked in on Olave and never looked back. Assuming this health scare passes, Olave will enter his fifth season as a low-end WR1 in early fantasy drafts.

Players infrequently miss games due to illness, so we expect Olave to be active on game day. This is worth keeping an eye on, though. The Saints’ No. 1 wide receiver has earned a career-high 151 targets this season, the third-most in the NFL. He is a WR1 against the Falcons, if active.

Per usual, Olave dominated targets for the Saints, seeing 41 percent of Tyler Shough’s attempts with loads of air yards to juice the numbers. The Titans were unable to keep up with Olave and he repeatedly gashed them for chunk plays. His touchdown came from 19 yards out and he hit on a 60-yard connection down the sideline later in the game. Olave’s fantasy playoff run is quietly one of the best in recent memory, with 24 grabs for 352 yards and four touchdowns over his past three games. He will claim a spot in the WR1 ranks for his Week 18 date with the Falcons.

Olave was a surprise addition to the injury report on Friday. The team listed him as a limited participant and gave him a questionable designation. It was quickly reported that he was expected to play. Coming off a career day with 148 yards and two scores versus the Jets, Olave is inching closer to the WR1 ranks as the season nears its end. Inactive for the Saints are S Ugo Amadi, DT Bryan Bresee, WR Mason Tipton, CB Rejzohn Wright, TE Zaire Mitchell-Paden, RB Alvin Kamara, and OG Cesar Ruiz.

Olave popped up on the team’s injury report as a Friday addition due to a back injury. Concerns about his status were raised when the team elevated a wide receiver on Saturday, although those worries ultimately appear to have landed unfounded. Olave is coming off a season-high 16 targets on his way to a 10-148-2 line against the Jets and can be started with confidence in fantasy Championships.

He was limited in practice today, despite not being seen by reporters in the media access portion of the session. Olave has been listed with this back issue before and has said this week that he had “similar back issues dating back to high school.” We’d consider him on the optimistic side of questionable, but it’s never great to have a Friday downgrade on the injury report.

Olave over the past two weeks has turned his air yards domination into actual fantasy production, which is nice. Tyler Shough, who had 308 yards on the day, targeted Olave relentlessly from start to finish against a Jets secondary that has been shredded in recent weeks. Olave caught one touchdown from Shough and one from 35-year-old gadget player Taysom Hill, who functioned as the centerpiece of the Saints offense for some reason. Olave’s domination of targets and air yards in the New Orleans offense gives him weekly top-10 upside. He’ll get the Titans in Week 17.

Tipton missed the Saints’ last two practices. Players typically play through illnesses, but he appears to be truly questionable. Were he to sit out, it would leave the Saints with only WRs Chris Olave, Kevin Austin Jr. and Dante Pettis on the active roster. Olave should handle a significant target share, per usual.

Vele flew too high, winning multiple contested catches in Week 15 against the Panthers. The 6-foot-5, 210-pound wide receiver will now miss Week 16 after picking up a shoulder injury last week. Ideally, Vele returns in time to play in at least one more game and continues to carve out a role as a possession receiver in the Saints’ offense for next year. Saints WR Chris Olave became QB Tyler Shough’s go-to receiver only after Vele left last week’s contest.

Olave was an afterthought for much of this game, ceding targets to possession receiver WR Devaughn Vele until Vele exited with a shoulder injury. Olave had just one catch and seven yards on two targets at halftime. He came to life on the Saints’ seventh drive, ripping off explosive gains on three consecutive plays, while bizarrely employing a catch-and-fall technique on each one. He sandwiched 17- and 16-yard gains on post routes with an 18-yard gain on a corner route. On 3rd-and-6 from the Panthers’ 12-yard line, he deftly broke inward on a post route, leaving Panthers star CB Jaycee Horn in the dust. Shough then slung it to Olave for the score. Olave is a borderline WR1/2 against the Jets in Week 16.