Chris Olave disappointed a lot of people last year, but he still had a career-high in targets, receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns. Really, his biggest issue was consistency. Five single-digit games in a fantasy season from a player that you expect a lot more from is really tough to swallow. It doesn't help that he missed a game and only played in 47% of the snaps in another game.
But what I really feel is most important here, that no one ever talks about, were the injuries to Derek Carr. In week three, he suffered an AC joint sprain in his shoulder and continued to play through it. Then he had a concussion and re-injured the same shoulder in week 10. He had another concussion and hurt his throwing shoulder for the third time in week 13. There was a reason that Derek Carr was just checking down to Alvin Kamara all season long—he wasn't able to throw the ball down the field like usual.
So was 2023 a disappointment for Olave? For sure. But now Michael Thomas is gone, Juwan Johnson is already hurt, and the other starting wide receivers right now are Rashid Shaheed and A.T. Perry. Neither one of those guys are volume-type receivers; however, they can play on the outside, which means we should be able to keep Chris Olave in the slot. And you know we love ourselves some slot wide receivers. Maybe, just maybe, everyone was just a year early on the Olave hype.
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