Will the Pittsburgh Steelers add another veteran wide receiver this offseason after trading WR George Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys shortly after the 2025 NFL Draft concluded? That’s certainly a plausible notion. As of Friday morning, however, there haven’t been any real and legitimate signs that the Steelers will ultimately trade for a wide receiver in an attempt to replace Pickens. There is a rumor, however, that the Steelers might be interested in trading for Saints WR Chris Olave. That rumor concerning Olave seems to have come via Adam Crowley of 93.7 The Fan Friday morning.
With nothing else going on ahead of the weekend, I decided to at least address the plausibility of the Steelers trading for Olave.
For starters, Olave is under contract with the Saints through the 2026 season on the heels of New Orleans picking up the fifth-year option on his rookie contract in April. Olave is scheduled to earn a $1,499,940 base salary in 2025. Additionally, he is due a $1,833,042 roster bonus on the fifth day of training camp this summer, according to Over the Cap. His fifth-year option amount for the 2026 season is $15.493 million, a figure now fully guaranteed.
If the Saints traded Olave to the Steelers, they would incur a dead money charge of $2,798,977 in 2025. If the Steelers acquired him before the fifth day of training camp, his salary cap charge in Pittsburgh would be $3,332,982. The Steelers could obviously easily take on such a salary cap charge for Olave.
In short, at least from a salary cap and cash-spending aspect, the Steelers could easily afford Olave.
Moving past the financials related to Olave, the Saints would be very thin at wide receiver should they ultimately trade the third-year veteran to the Steelers. The Saints would be left with wide receivers Brandin Cooks, Rashid Shaheed, Cedrick Wilson Jr., Bub Means, Kevin Austin Jr., Mason Tipton, Dante Pettis, Moochie Dixon, and Chris Tyree if they trade Olave. Dixon and Tyree are both rookie undrafted free agents, by the way. That’s not an overly appetizing group of wide receivers, in my opinion.
As for Olave, he has dealt with numerous concussions since being selected by the Saints in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Reportedly, Olave has sustained four concussions since entering the NFL and five when you include his college career at Ohio State. He played in just eight games in 2024 due to his most recent concussion, which he sustained last November.
While Olave was reportedly cleared to return to action and he resumed practicing late last season, he never saw the field again.
“I’m a huge competitor,” Olave said, according to Rod Walker of the The Times Picayune. “I sat (the rest of) this year out just to be able to protect myself long term. I’ve got a family, and I want to be there for a long time. Just trying to protect myself. Playing football is something that brings me joy. I just want to go out there and compete and have fun.”
Olave said fairly recently that he is looking forward to resuming playing again in 2025. He indicated that his plans are to spend most of his offseason in Dallas preparing for his fourth NFL season.
“I’m definitely looking forward to next year,” Olave said, according to Walker. “I know this [2024] season didn’t go how we wanted it to. Even when we were healthy when everybody was playing, we could have been so much better. Just from the talent we had. The close losses we had to Philly and Atlanta. It was tough. I’m definitely looking forward to next year and just trying to take it a day at time to get stronger. Trying to develop every day to be able to come back even better.”
Olave, who has 191 career NFL receptions for 2,565 yards and nine touchdowns, registered just 32 receptions for 400 yards and one touchdown in the eight games he played for the Saints in 2024.
Obviously, Olave’s concussion history is concerning and assuming the Saints are indeed willing to trade him this summer, that history could ultimately impact his trade compensation value. How could it not? It’s hard to gauge what that trade value might be right now, but I would imagine the Saints expecting to get anything better than a fourth-round selection for Olave would be a bit of a reach. Assuming the Saints would settle for less than a third-round selection in exchange for Olave, the Steelers obviously could facilitate such a trade quite easily, especially with the slew of compensatory selections they are expected to get next offseason.
Basically, and to wrap up the plausibility of the Steelers trading for Olave, sure everything checks out overall. Personally, I would be a bit surprised if the Saints traded Olave and that’s mainly due to the lack of quality wide receiver depth chart they would be left with if they moved him. From the Steelers’ perspective, they would obviously be taking on a huge risk based on Olave’s concussion history.
Last weekend, GM Omar Khan addressed the possibility of adding another experienced wide receiver to the Steelers on the heels of Pickens being traded to the Cowboys in addition to the team signing veteran WR Robert Woods.
“I’ll say this, if there’s an opportunity to add a playmaker or an offense, you know, regardless of whether it’s the receiver or whatever it is, you know, we’re going to look into it, and if it makes sense, it makes sense,” Khan said. “But you know, there are always good players available. And I mean it’s an interesting question; there are always good players out there. You know if we wanted to add some people we could.”
