San Diego’s Chris Olave would’ve been better off if the NFL Draft had sent him to Quarterback Utopia, known also as the incredibly fortunate Chargers.
Team Spanos is the lone NFL club to have had a franchise quarterback available for every start in the past 18 years. No other NFL franchise comes close to matching the Chargers’ QB continuity in that span.
Chargers receivers such as Keenan Allen, a terrific player in his own right, have benefited from the immense good luck their club has enjoyed at the NFL’s most important position. Allen, in an 11-year career that began in San Diego, has worked almost exclusively with just two QBs: Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert.
That’s not how it works for most NFL receivers. Just ask Olave.
Already, the second-year graduate of San Marcos Mission Hills High School has had to adjust to four Saints quarterbacks due largely to uneven aptitude and durability at the position.
As a rookie last year, Olave caught es from starters Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton, plus from often-used situational QB Taysom Hill.
Olave still managed to catch 72 es for 1,042 yards (14.5) and four touchdowns, leading the Saints in both receptions and receiving yards.
However, the chemistry he built with Dalton, the team’s primary QB, went out the window in March when the Saints replaced Dalton with former Raiders starter Derek Carr.
So while Allen and other Chargers’ offensive players could once again build further upon their sturdy foundation with Herbert, who’s been available for all of the club’s 55 starts since he was drafted — a streak at his position matched only by Bills star Josh Allen in that span — Olave was yanked back to Stage 1.
Naturally, it’s been a choppy voyage, complicated further by a recent shoulder injury to Carr.
Take last Sunday’s dysfunctional Saints performance in which Todd Bowles’ sophisticated Bucs D dictated .
The 26-9 defeat brought Olave more misery than Allen encounters across several games.
Such as when a defensive back anticipated an outlet and cracked Olave in the ribs the moment the ball arrived.
Or when Olave got behind two defenders only for Carr to throw late and too short, enabling a Bucs safety to break up the in the end zone.
Olave finished with just one reception and four yards off six targets. That’s not what the Saints had in mind when they moved up and drafted him 11th overall last year, but it’s a reminder: the NFL is a more brutal world for offenses that are trying to coalesce at QB. Limited by the Bucs to 197 yards and no touchdowns, the Saints (2-2) are a 2.5-point underdog for Sunday’s game at New England.
Notable
- Rashid Shaheed, who played under coach John Anderson at Mt. Carmel High School, leads the NFL with 23.8 yards per punt return. For the aggressive Saints, he’s first in kickoff returns (11) and fifth in yards per return (20.7).
- A 49ers defense led by two-time All-Pro and signal-calling LB Fred Warner (Mission Hills) is third in fewest points allowed and second in fewest missed tackles.
- RG Daniel Brunskill (Valley Center, SDSU) has played all of the Titans’ 242 offensive snaps. A year after having no penalities in his 14-game season with the 49ers, the former civil engineering major hasn’t been flagged with Tennessee (2-2).
