Chris Olave Fantasy Football Value After Signing 4-Year Contract Extension With Saints
Fantasy

Chris Olave Fantasy Football Value After Signing 4-Year Contract Extension With Saints

Chris Olave is staying in New Orleans for the next four-plus seasons. What does it mean for fantasy football ahead of 2026?

Published Updated

The big-money extensions continue to fly for young wide receivers. Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Drake London got paid to start the offseason, and Chris Olave officially joined them on Thursday. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports Olave’s new deal is for up to $132M across four seasons, with $90M guaranteed. It makes Olave one of the highest-paid receivers in football, regardless of what metric you choose to look at.

Olave is coming off a career year in 2025-26, and the Saints’ offense could be sneaky-good next season. Is Olave worth targeting in fantasy football? Let’s dive in.

NO_saints-logo.svgChris Olave Fantasy Football Outlook For 2026

Olave finally managed to stay mostly healthy in 2025-26, which has been an issue to start his career. He’s already dealt with multiple concussions, and he was limited to just eight games played in 2024-25.

Olave got in 16 games for just the second time in his career last season, and he responded with 100 receptions, 1,163 yards and nine touchdowns. It was good for a WR6 finish in PPR scoring.

Olave quietly put up some of the best utilization in the NFL last season. He had a 29% target share, and perhaps more importantly, he had a 42% air yards share and 48% end zone share. It resulted in an 86 Utilization Score overall, which was the fifth-best mark at the receiver position.

The best news is that Olave’s production only increased once Tyler Shough took over at quarterback. The Saints’ potential QB of the future made his first start in Week 9, and he started the final nine games of the regular season. Olave’s metrics were all better with Shough than they were with Spencer Rattler to start the year:

  • Olave Weeks 1 through 8: 29% target share, 83 UR Score, 14.9 PPR points per game
  • Olave Weeks 9 through 18: 29% target share, 88 UR Score, 18.8 PPR points per game

Quarterbacks tend to make some of their biggest statistical leaps between their first and second seasons. We just saw that happen last year with Drake Maye, who averaged 6.3 adjusted yards per attempt as a rookie but 9.5 adjusted yards per attempt in his MVP-runner-up finish. Shough likely won’t make that type of leap, but any sort of improvement could result in a second straight career year for Olave.

The only real concern is how much work Jordyn Tyson will steal from Olave this season. He was selected eighth overall in the first round, and many believed him to be the most-talented receiver in the draft class. Olave had minimal competition for targets last year, with no other wide receiver posting a target share greater than 9%. Tyson will certainly clear that figure, and he could do so by a wide margin.

cd.-did-you-know.jpg Reside Saints Fan Cooterdoodle chimes in: It doesn't take a Saints fan to know that Chris Olave is poised to have the best season of his life. He’s healthy. His QB is healthy. And now, his bank account is healthy. This is what we call the “stars aligning”, folks.

Should You Draft Chris Olave In 2026 Fantasy Football Drafts?

I’m answering this question with an unequivocal “yes”.

There are plenty of reasons to believe in the Saints’ offense this season. They were 19th in EPA per dropback after Shough took over at QB last season, and they were 11th over the final five weeks of the regular season. Add in some additional talent in Tyson and running back Travis Etienne—along with a friendly schedule—and this unit could be seriously undervalued at the moment. Even if Olave gets a smaller piece of the pie than he did last year, the overall pie could be a lot bigger.

Olave is also far from being drafted at his ceiling. His fantasy football ADP checks in at 31.2 overall, good for a WR12 price tag. That’s in line with where our expert fantasy football rankings have him, but it’s possible that Olave moves up a bit after signing an extension. With his “hold in” officially over, he should be all systems go for the start of the regular season.

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. Chris Olave
    ChrisOlave
    WRNONO
    PPG
    13.7
    Proj
    193.9
  2. Jaxon Smith-Njigba
    JaxonSmith-Njigba
    WRSEASEA
    PPG
    16.8
    Proj
    255.8
  3. Drake London
    DrakeLondon
    WRATLATL
    PPG
    13.8
    Proj
    213.1
  4. Tyler Shough
    TylerShough
    QBNONO
    PPG
    14.5
    Proj
    273.1

Published Updated