What are we really expecting from Olave in year 3?
I read this quote from Dennis Allen, and it was in reference to Isaiah Foskey. Allen said with second-year players that "the hope is always that they're going to make the biggest jump from year one to year two."
There was no 2nd year leap for Olave.
Statistically, whether you go by plain old stats or PFF ratings, Olave was pretty much the same guy in year 2 he was during his rookie season. Now, I don't mean to say that's a bad thing, it underscores that he appears to have been a high floor receiver, something this team needed when they moved up to draft him.
It's just that, realistically how much room does he have for more growth?
It's not like he wasn't the #1 WR already last year. He led the team in targets by landslide, and there's a quote of Carr mentioning the team was already positioning him as the #1 guy with Thomas still in the building.
"I understand also that when I came in the building, we have Chris Olave, who we're trying to train to be the No. 1 guy. So all of a sudden, every rep and every read in practice, is Chris first. And as a superstar that Mike is and what he has been, you're dealing with all the injury noise, you're dealing with now Chris — and he loves Chris, that's his guy, Ohio State and all that — but I can understand where the frustration begins to build.
In a couple years Olave is going to want to get paid and while he's one of the new core young talents on this team, with the going rate for WR's increasing every year, this season will tell us a lot if he's going to be worth paying that type of money to. Is he a game breaking WR right now? No, he'd need to up his YAC, contested catch rate, and consistency significantly to put himself in that discussion. Last year he had six games w/ under 50 yards, and typically the Z goes against teams #2 CB.
For now, I see a guy who's put up #2 WR production with #1 WR targets and that was with health luck mostly on his side. Year 3 is either going to be an explosion or step back.