Saints News: Chris Olave Facing Increased Target Competition in 2026
Olave Had the Best Season of His Career. He Also Ended It in a Hospital.
Chris Olave’s 2025 season was the most productive of his NFL career by every measure. It also ended with a blood clot detected in his lung before Week 18, a detail that belongs at the center of any honest assessment of his 2026 outlook.
Olave caught 100 passes for 1,163 yards and nine touchdowns on 156 targets across 16 regular-season games, setting career highs in every major category and earning AP second-team All-Pro honors. He was the WR6 in half-PPR fantasy scoring. He became only the second Saints receiver ever to reach 100 receptions in a season, joining Michael Thomas. His 29-target share was ninth in the NFL among all receivers.
He also missed the regular-season finale after a blood clot was detected in his lung, and he was held out as a precaution. The expectation from the Saints and multiple media outlets is that he will be fully cleared before the start of the 2026 season. No update has suggested otherwise. But for a player whose 2024 season was lost to multiple concussions, the pattern of health events is context any dynasty manager should sit with before drawing conclusions.
When Olave was healthy in 2025, the chemistry he built with quarterback Tyler Shough down the stretch was one of the more encouraging signs of the offseason. In the final three games of the season, with Shough operating as the unquestioned starter, Olave caught 24 of his 36 targets for 352 yards and four touchdowns. Shough’s ability to find him consistently at every level of the field is a core reason the dynasty case for Olave entering 2026 remains intact.
The target competition he faces is also real, however. The Saints spent the eighth overall pick on Arizona State receiver Jordyn Tyson, whose 6-foot-2, 203-pound frame and contested-catch ability profile him as a legitimate WR2 in New Orleans from Day 1. Tyson totaled 1,812 receiving yards over his final two college seasons, was a back-to-back third-team AP All-American, and was described by head coach Kellen Moore as a receiver who “can play a ton of positions” and who “can separate at the line of scrimmage, at the catch point.”
“It’s going to be amazing,” Tyson said of playing alongside Olave after the draft. “Take pressure off each other, make our jobs easier.”
The caveat is that Tyson himself has missed games in each of his last two college seasons. He played nine games in 2025 at Arizona State after starting every game in 2024 before missing time with injury. His talent is not in question. His availability has been.
In 2025, no wide receiver on the Saints was targeted within 90 of Olave’s total. Juwan Johnson’s 102 targets at tight end made him the only other pass-catcher in the same general tier. That distribution will shift. How much depends on Tyson’s development, Olave’s health clearance, and the trajectory of Shough’s second professional season.
The overall offensive environment in New Orleans is improving. Shough’s late-season performance was a genuine signal. The addition of Tyson gives the offense a downfield dimension it lacked. And Olave, when operating at full capacity, is one of the more reliable targets in the league on third downs, ranking third in the NFL in third-down receptions in 2025 with 30.
The dynasty picture entering 2026 is Olave as a confirmed WR1 in a better offense, facing the most legitimate target competition of his Saints career, coming off a health scare that has not been fully explained and that demands monitoring before it is dismissed.