CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Everything was normal in the leadup to the New Orleans Saints Week 10 game against the Carolina Panthers, and then Chris Olave stepped onto the turf at Bank of America Stadium.
It was here last season where Olave’s season came to an early end. Here where Olave suffered his second concussion of the season and the fourth of his playing career, here where he lay on the turf in the worst kind of way, limp and with his teammates calling for the medical professionals.
That was a little more than a year ago. Much has happened since, but the moment came flooding back when Olave took the field for the first time. He felt anxious.
“As soon as I stepped on the field, I just felt it all over again,” Olave said.
There were a lot of questions about Olave coming into the 2025 season. When he’s been on the field, his talent is undeniable. He topped 1,000 yards in each of his first two professional seasons after the Saints selected him in the first round of the 2022 draft, and he looked like he was on his way to a third straight last season.
But the concussions put a pause on Olave’s career. The fact that he’d sustained a couple of them in one season — and had been evaluated for another — led to legitimate questions about Olave’s long-term viability as a professional player.
That noise has somewhat quieted this season as Olave has played in each of the Saints first 10 games, missing only a few snaps as he’s dealt with relatively minor injury issues. But it was a major concern, and the thoughts crept into Olave’s head Sunday against Carolina.
And then he spotted his father in the stands. And then he heard the encouraging words from his teammates. And then Olave did the thing he does best.
He torched the Panthers.
Olave caught five passes for 103 yards and a touchdown against the Panthers. The touchdown went for 62 yards — the longest catch of Olave’s career. Several of his catches came on clutch downs, moving the chains on third down. One will likely make his career highlight reel, when he shrugged off a defensive pass interference to make a whirling one-handed snag near the sideline.
“The thing is he's our guy, he's our receiver,” said tight end Juwan Johnson. “Like, there's no question about it. … That (one-handed catch is) something we knew he could do from the beginning. So we're not surprised.”
It’s been a tough year for Olave. He’s playing for a struggling team, and he’s had his share in those struggles, with several crucial drops earlier in the season as the primary receiving option. He seemed limited by the offense early, with most of his catches going for shallow gains.
But lately, Olave has rediscovered his big play ability. He now has seven catches of 20 or more yards this season, all of which have come in the last five weeks. Olave has caught a pass of 50 or more yards in three of the last five games.
His big explosive play Sunday against Carolina came when the Saints desperately needed it. Facing a third down, quarterback Tyler Shough stepped into a clean pocket and let a deep ball fly down the sideline. Olave was in tight coverage by the Panthers’ star corner Jaycee Horn, but he fought through it, and maintained his focus as Horn fell.
Olave hauled it in with nobody around him and coasted in for the 62-yard score.
The Saints were initially fooled on the play, but it worked out to their benefit. Olave figured it was Cover 2 pre-snap, but when he went for his double move, Horn stuck with him.
“I kind of went outside, tried to outside release and it was man,” Olave said. “At the end of the day that's what we wanted,” We kind of got tight to the sideline so I had to kind of battle him to catch the ball and he fell.”
That was Olave’s first catch of the day. He needed something like that to put the bad memories from last year’s game out of his mind.
But Olave wasn’t alone. His teammates had his back, and so did his father, Raul Olave.
His dad was there at Bank of America Stadium, and he offered support when the memories came flooding back.
“He showed through that process I was going through a lot and him being at every game, all the away games, all the home games, it means a lot to me, man,” Olave said about his father. “He was out there solo in the stands by himself. I had to go talk to him, pregame and just to loosen up my mind. It helped me a lot.”