Olave heads into year two under Kellen Moore with the exact same quarterback who unlocked him the first time. Tyler Shough took the reins in New Orleans midseason and Olave's game changed with him, the offense suddenly finding him on time and in rhythm instead of hoping something broke open downfield. Nothing about that pairing reset this offseason. The room around him got reshaped, but the passing game still runs through Olave first.
What makes him worth building around is the part scouts flagged back at Ohio State and the part that hasn't changed since: he wins at the top of the route. Olave drops his hips and comes out of a break as clean as anyone in the league, which is exactly what makes him deadly on the digs and comebacks Moore's scheme leans on. He's not a yards-after-catch guy who turns a slant into a house call. He's a separator, the receiver a quarterback throws to with anticipation because the route is going to be where it's supposed to be. Shough's improved touch on intermediate throws found that receiver immediately once he took over.
The real risk isn't his legs. It's everything above the shoulders and behind the sternum. A blood clot in his lungs ended his 2025 season before the finale, and that sits on top of a run of concussions that's now become the recurring flag on his medical file. Neither of those is a decline-with-age problem or a scheme problem — they're the kind of thing that can end a season in one play regardless of how well the offense is using him, and it's the honest reason his ceiling has an asterisk that talent alone doesn't explain.
Garrett Wilson is the receiver drawing the direct comparison, and he's a legitimate one to argue about — Wilson wins the same kind of throws Olave does, with more raw juice after the catch. But Wilson spent last season getting hurt, missing most of it on a knee injury that wiped out his usual production, and he's now trying to build timing with yet another new starting quarterback in a career that's already run through a carousel of them. Olave doesn't have that problem to solve. He's coming back to the same arm that just got him rolling, in the same scheme, with nothing to rebuild. That continuity is worth more than Wilson's higher ceiling if the guy with it can just stay on the field.
