2024 Team Previews: New Orleans Saints

New Orleans Saints 2024 Preview

All ADP data is courtesy of Fantasy Pros.

** = target in drafts at this ADP

Top 120

Chris Olave, WR (ADP: 24, WR12): Olave may not have had the monster blowup games we were hoping for in Year 2, and that are expected of top flight WR1s, but he put together a very strong 2023 season in a pretty depressing offensive environment. Final season numbers like 87 receptions, 1,123 yards and five touchdowns are nothing to sneeze at, although underwhelming TD totals in both of his NFL seasons might be a trend rather than poor luck. It’s still too early to decide on that though, and the rest of his profile suggests it’s worth continuing to bank on Olave being a stud.

Olave was primarily a flanker, cooking man at a 76.3% clip (87th percentile) and zone at an 81.5% rate (76th percentile). He excelled at damn near every route in the tree except for the corner, which only made up 4.8% of his routes run, and he was a Top 16 WR per PFF, with very little separation from the elite names right in front of him. And while we mentioned those volcanic games weren’t happening in 2023, he was consistently solid and that has a lot of value for fantasy managers.

Olave went for 85+ yards in half of his games played, and went for more than 100 yards five times. He also scored a touchdown in three of his six games with fewer than 50 yards, rescuing those low-yardage efforts from being fantasy disasters. And he did all this while dealing with the tepid play of Derek Carr, one of the NFL’s most risk-averse QBs last season and with whom he was outwardly butting heads with all season. Carr will be there again, which isn’t great, but elite WRs often produce for fantasy managers even when they’re combatting dire QB situations. We don’t love Carr, but Olave could do worse. All in all, this ADP might look a tad rich for what he’s done so far as a pro. It’s much closer to his ceiling than his floor, but I am a believer in this man’s talent, so I wouldn’t criticize anyone grabbing Olave at this point.

Alvin Kamara, RB (ADP: 45, RB17): Kamara is not a volume running back, and never has been, which will be used by some to say his ADP is too high. Kamara is a total volume back though, and that hasn’t changed in 2024. Kamara’s always been successful in a non-traditional manner, and 2023 leaned into that. Despite being suspended to begin the season and playing in 13 games total, Kamara was second in the NFL among RBs in both targets and receptions to only Breece Hall. Availability has been an issue for Kamara throughout his career, but he’s gone well over 400 receiving yards in each of the past three seasons, and at his peak was an 826-yard man as a rookie.

Kamara’s no longer the TD maven he was in his youth, as he has failed to hit double-digits since scoring 21 in 2020, but he is still a high-usage guy (16.5 opportunities per game) who will benefit from Carr’s constant checking down. It’s hard for some managers to invest high picks on RBs who have never, and will never hit the 1,000-yard mark as rushers. If you can get past the path Kamara takes to his production, and just treat yardage as yardage, he’s basically being drafted at his floor for a reasonably healthy season. His ceiling is much higher if he can have a TD surge, and that’s why I like this ADP quite a bit.

Fantasy Relevant (120-150 ADP)

**Rashid Shaheed, WR (ADP: 155, WR59): On the surface, Shaheed looks like a gadgety big play guy who is fun for best ball or daily fantasy lineups, but not weekly leagues. His career 16.3 yards per reception mark is dazzling, but not sustainable. Right? His 14.6 yard average depth of target (ADOT) is too absurd for him to be consistently targeted…right? Well, his 719 yards and five touchdowns as a second-year receiver provided a bit more sustenance for the Saints than players of this ilk typically give their teams, and there’s reason to believe he may actually be more viable for fantasy managers than they might realize.

His success rates vs. man and zone aren’t incredible, but he was in the 74th percentile (74.4%) in the league vs. press coverage, which is a strong mark for a guy who isn’t very big. 20.2% of his routes were nines, which tracks with his ridiculous yards per reception and ADOT marks, but he was successful 66% of the time. That’s wild. He was at 75% on digs, which shows he can work the intermediate area pretty well, and 80% on curls, showing how that deep speed can work to his advantage on higher-percentage routes. He was also lethal on slants, suggesting there’s way more to his game than running fast.

Shaheed’s zone success could use improvement, but he’s only entering Year 3. As it stands, he could be a very impactful player with just some improvements to what he’s already good at, and he’s a guy the Saints are comfortable manufacturing touches for in space as well. This ADP treats him like an afterthought. I think he’s much closer to a high-variance FLEX option for teams that are either comfortable with high levels of risk, or have a lot of oatmeal and need some spice. Shaheed’s talent is what breakouts are made of.

Favorite Deep Sleeper

**Taysom Hill, TE (ADP: 157, TE17): Hill is a player that I’ve come to appreciate over time, and my optimism isn’t trolling or a rebuke of the TE position. I went into detail here as to why I believe Hill can legitimately be a season-long TE. We’ll do a shorter version of the case now.

Much like Kamara is a productive RB through non-traditional usage, Hill puts up very similar numbers to other, more trusted TEs, but he does so in a way that appears unsustainable. Once we are beyond the top TEs, we’re looking at a lot of guys who are just hoping for 40-50 yards and a TD. Well, Hill only caught 33 passes for 291 yards and a score last year, so he’s not quite that. But he finished the year with 692 yards from scrimmage and six touchdowns, and the year before he ended with 652 yards from scrimmage and nine touchdowns.

With Hill, you’re not hoping for a target in the end zone from five yards out. That’s in the mix of outcomes, but you can also hope for a handoff, screen pass, or even a direct snap that he can run in, or throw to someone else. Around the goal line, Hill often replaces Carr at QB for maximum confusion of the opposing defense. New Orleans ran 46 plays inside the five-yard line last season, and Kamara led the way with 13 opportunities. Hill was second with nine, and he had the same number of touchdowns (3). Compare that with a “safer” TE like Jake Ferguson of the Cowboys, going as a Top 10 TE well before pick No. 100 overall, and he saw……nine targets inside the five, scoring the same number of TDs. The point is, Hill’s role on this team provides him the same, if not greater, safety than plenty of TEs people are trusting after the top guys and he’s available with one of your last picks.

Deep Cuts (150 & later)

Kendre Miller, RB (ADP: 204, RB58): Miller pretty much had a bust of a rookie season thanks to injuries that kneecapped his chance to make an early impact while Kamara was suspended. He enters 2024 battling veteran Jamaal Williams for the scraps that are left behind when Kamara is off the field, which isn’t very often. This role becomes less valuable than the typical “thunder” back behind Kamara’s “lightning” because they won’t be a goal line back. That role is handled by Taysom Hill, as we just highlighted, so there’s not much value in Saints handcuffs. Miller needs a long term Kamara injury to break out, and even if the injury happens, you have to hope the coaches don’t simply trust Williams more.

Derek Carr, QB (ADP: 217, QB30): Carr was once an underappreciated darling on the upswing, but now we’re 10 years in and while he’s had yardage spikes, we’ve seen only one season with 30+ TDs. The only leagues in which he’s relevant are two-QB formats, and SuperFlex leagues, and even in those he’s not an auto-start some weeks vs. skill players with blowup matchups.

Juwan Johnson, TE (ADP: 257, TE31): Johnson is a TD-dependent TE, who, when healthy, does score pretty consistently. He found paydirt seven times in 2022, and scored four times last year despite battling a bunch of injuries and only rounding into form late. He’s a potential streamer, but his floor in any given week is zero, so he’s not a recommended weekly play.

A.T. Perry, WR (ADP: 337, WR112): Perry really did not get on the field much, so there isn’t a ton to say about him besides he should get a greater opportunity in 2024 with Michael Thomas off the team. Perry’s an impressive physical specimen who should get run as the X receiver opposite Olave, and his 20.5 yards per reception mark hint at some boom-or-bust qualities. He excites me as a player, but I’d be more willing to spend a last-pick flier on him if he had a QB more willing to test defenses deep. Carr isn’t an ideal QB for this WR archetype, so while he’s interesting, the likelihood of him popping this year is very low.

Bub Means, WR (ADP: N/A): Means, a fifth-rounder in this year’s draft, was a big play guy at Pitt who popped for 721 yards and six touchdowns on just 41 receptions as a fifth-year senior. With Michael Thomas gone, there is opportunity for someone to step up behind Olave, and Shaheed. I’m not expecting it to be this late-round rookie, but it could be based on the lack of established names on the depth chart.

Spencer Rattler, QB (ADP: N/A): Rattler is a long ways away from being a perfect prospect. He had a lot of hype in college at Oklahoma, but wound up being usurped and ending up at South Carolina for the final two seasons of his collegiate career where he failed to have even a 20-touchdown campaign. He makes mistakes and wasn’t very accurate, but as Reception Perception notes, he ran an NFL-style offense behind a pitiful offensive line with basically one flawed playmaker to throw to. They also noted that he was far better when he wasn’t under intense pressure, with his accuracy approaching Bo Nix levels (high). There’s a world where Carr is not getting the job done and the Saints decide to try a QB who can give the offense some juice. If so, he can matter in two-QB leagues.