Saints Paid Massive Combined Price to Trade Up for Chris Olave

The first night of the 2022 NFL Draft saw a fair amount of trades going down, including one that involved the New Orleans Saints moving picks No. 16, No. 98 and No. 120 to the Washington Commanders for the 11th overall selection.

The Saints ultimately used the pick to draft Ohio State wide receiver Chris Olave. New Orleans certainly spent a lot of capital to move up to draft their guy, but it turns out the organization actually paid a higher price in the grand scheme of things.

New Orleans Saints News

The Saints originally acquired the 16th overall pick (as well as No. 19 and No. 194) at the beginning of April when they traded the 18th, 101st and 237th overall picks — along with a 2023 first-round pick and 2024 second-round pick — to the Philadelphia Eagles.

ESPN's Mark Triplett points out that the organization essentially used the following five picks to move up and grab Olave:

• 2023 first-round pick
• 2024 second-round pick
• Two 2022 compensatory third-round picks
• 2022 fourth-round pick

Regardless of how you slice it, that's a lot of capital to give up for a wide receiver prospect — especially with three of the other top-six wideout prospects still on the board. On top of that, Olave wasn't projected to be drafted until the 20s.

That isn't to say that Olave isn't talented — because he is. He racked up over 900 yards on 65 receptions last season and found the endzone 35 times in 38 career games as a Buckeye. It's just that there's no guarantee that he'll have a career to match his draft position.

Nevertheless, it's too late to go back and Olave's presence does improve the Saints' passing game which was rather abysmal last season as Michael Thomas missed the entire campaign due to injury. With a healthy Thomas and Olave leading the charge, New Orleans should have a much-improved aerial game going forward.

The Saints still have a ways to go before they're viewed as contenders, proven by FanDuel Sportsbook giving them +4400 odds (No. 21) to win Super Bowl LVII.

Devon Platana is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Devon Platana also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username PepeSilvia0. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.