The Saints left Sunday with a 35-27 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders and a long list of mistakes to clean up. They also left with something far more encouraging: Chris Olave kept adding to a resume that now looks like it belongs to a true franchise receiver.
Olave finished with nine catches for 107 yards, and that pushed him over 4,000 career receiving yards. He became only the 10th player in Saints history to hit that mark. He also moved past Danny Abramowicz for ninth place in franchise receptions with 318, and he climbed ahead of Jimmy Graham for fifth in Saints history with his 14th career 100-yard game.
Those numbers deserve to stand on their own. In a game that turned sour because of four fourth-quarter turnovers, Olave was still the most reliable part of the New Orleans passing attack.
Through three games, he has piled up 27 receptions for 375 yards and one touchdown. The production has come in different ways against different opponents: 182 yards against Detroit, 86 yards and a touchdown in Baltimore, and then Sunday’s 107-yard outing against Las Vegas. That adds up to an average of 125 receiving yards per game, with defenses knowing full well that Tyler Shough wants to find him.
No one should expect that pace to last all season. But this is no longer just a hot start.
Olave has shown up against three different teams, in three different game scripts, and done it while serving as the clear focal point of the Saints’ passing game. That is WR1 production.
And his value isn’t limited to the catches he makes.
Olave did not catch one of Shough’s four touchdown passes against the Raiders. Instead, those scores went to tight ends Juwan Johnson and Noah Fant, who caught two apiece.
That shouldn’t be read as Olave fading out near the goal line. It looks more like the kind of attention he commands when defenses have to account for him on every snap.
When safeties drift toward Olave and corners need help stopping him from beating them deep, space opens up underneath. That gives Johnson and Fant more room to work, especially in the red zone.
The Saints’ tight ends caught four touchdown passes Sunday, which is notable on its own after the entire position group produced four receiving touchdowns all last season. Through three games, New Orleans already has six tight end touchdown receptions.
Olave doesn’t get all of the credit for that, but he clearly changes the math for everyone else.
His milestone also says plenty about how steady he has been. Reaching 4,000 yards is one thing. Getting there while navigating quarterback changes, coaching changes and injuries early in his career says even more.
Now the Saints may finally have a passing game they can build around. Shough completed 29 of 42 passes for 250 yards, four touchdowns and one interception against Las Vegas, finishing with a 99.5 passer rating.
The four touchdown throws were a career high for him and the most by a Saints quarterback since Derek Carr threw four against Atlanta on Jan. 7, 2024.
The late-game breakdowns were real, and they cost New Orleans. But Shough and Olave also gave the Saints something they haven’t always had: a young quarterback willing to challenge defenses downfield and a receiver who can win at every level.
Still, the production has to turn into wins.
Olave’s 107 yards, a 60% third-down conversion rate and a 381-340 edge in total yardage should have been enough to put New Orleans in control. Instead, the offense disappeared in the fourth quarter and coughed up the football four times.
That’s the tension here. Big numbers look nice, but they don’t fix turnovers. And they don’t matter much if the Saints are collecting yards while the game slips away late.
The answer is to keep moving Olave around and making defenses work for every snap. Put him in the slot.
Use motion. Lean on play-action.
Give him chances to attack favorable matchups instead of parking him in the same spot and asking him to beat extra attention over and over.
The Saints also need their other pass catchers to keep growing into real threats. Johnson and Fant handled that role against the Raiders, combining for four touchdowns. DeVaughn Vele added three catches for 39 yards.
The more dependable those options become, the harder it gets for defenses to load up on Olave.
Chris Olave is past the point of being just a promising young receiver. He’s already one of the most productive pass catchers in Saints history.
Four thousand yards. Fourteen 100-yard games.
More receptions than Abramowicz. And all of it before the end of September in his fifth NFL season.
The loss stung because New Orleans had control for much of the afternoon before giving it away. But Olave’s performance still carried real weight.
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