Chris Olave didn’t need long to put Sunday’s result into perspective.
After the Saints knocked off the Ravens 24-17 in Baltimore, the wide receiver said what the record book has been hinting at for years: New Orleans has not exactly been stacking up wins against quality opponents.
“I feel like since I’ve been here, we haven’t really beaten a good team,” Olave said, adding, “To come in here and get a ‘W’ was huge for us.”
He’s not wrong, and the numbers make the point even louder. Since the Saints traded up for Olave in 2022, Sunday was only the eighth time New Orleans beat an opponent that entered the game above .500. The Saints have won 28 games in that stretch.
Even that stat needs some trimming. Of the seven victories before Baltimore, five came against teams that eventually finished below .500. The two exceptions were the 2023 Buccaneers, who ended up 9-8, and the 2022 Eagles, who made the Super Bowl but were without Jalen Hurts when they met the Saints.
That’s the backdrop for why this win stood out.
The Ravens fit the definition of a real test. They didn’t make the playoffs last season, but they’ve been a constant presence in the contender conversation, they have a two-time MVP in Lamar Jackson and they were favored to win the AFC North. New Orleans walked into that and came out with a result that looks more meaningful than most of the others on this list.
The first one came on Jan. 1, 2023, when the Saints stunned the 13-2 Eagles 20-10 in what was easily the high point of Dennis Allen’s first season. Gardner Minshew started for an injured Jalen Hurts, but New Orleans still turned it into its third straight win. The rest of that Saints season was mostly built on beating teams that did not arrive with winning records, even if the 2-2 Seahawks later finished 9-8 and made the playoffs.
A year later, on Dec. 31, 2023, the Saints beat Tampa Bay 23-13. That was New Orleans’ only winning season in Olave’s career so far, and it came with a lot of work against the league’s lesser teams.
Still, the Week 17 win over the 8-7 Buccaneers fits the category here. There was also the Week 5 win over the Colts, who were 3-4 when they lost to the Saints and finished 9-8.
On Sept. 15, 2024, New Orleans beat Dallas 44-19 in what looked, for a moment, like the start of something bigger.
The Saints’ offense opened the year with back-to-back 40-point outings, and the Cowboys were 1-0 at the time. Then came the collapse: seven straight losses, Dennis Allen’s firing and an offseason coaching overhaul.
Dallas finished 7-10, so this one probably doesn’t count as a “good team” win by Olave’s standard anyway.
The next one on the list came Nov. 10, 2024, when the Saints beat Atlanta 20-17. The Falcons entered at 6-3 and looked like they were cruising toward the NFC South title, but New Orleans, under interim coach Darren Rizzi, pulled the upset.
Atlanta then fell apart and finished 8-9. Olave wasn’t on the field for it, though; his season had ended a week earlier with a concussion.
In 2025, the Saints finally gave Olave a win over a team that had real momentum at the time. On Nov.
9, New Orleans beat Carolina 17-7, and Tyler Shough got his first victory as a starter. Olave was a major part of it, catching five passes for 104 yards and scoring on a 62-yard touchdown.
A few weeks later, on Dec. 7, the Saints topped Tampa Bay 24-20 in a comeback win that looked even better for Shough. The Buccaneers were 7-5 when they came in, and Shough delivered a game that included two rushing touchdowns. It was one of those performances that made it clear the Saints could drag a game into their style and still finish it.
Then came Dec. 14, 2025, another 20-17 win over Carolina. The Panthers would go on to win the NFC South despite finishing below .500 and getting into the playoffs on tiebreakers, but they had to sweat through the final stretch because of New Orleans.
The Panthers were 7-6 entering the game and had just knocked off the Rams 31-28. Shough and the Saints still found a way to spoil the mood with another late comeback.
That brings it back to Sunday in Baltimore, where the Ravens entered as 8½-point favorites and the Saints pulled the biggest upset on the list. Whether it ages into a true quality win will depend on what Baltimore does the rest of the way. For now, though, it belongs right near the top of the recent Saints ledger.
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Brees said he seriously considered the comeback, but his old injuries kept him from being able to follow through. The NFL has not commented on the matter, and nothing further came from the conversation, leaving the whole episode as one of those strange what-if stories that briefly surfaced, then slipped back into the background. [Read more 🡒]