NFL Draft Profile: Chris Olave

Breaking down Ohio State WR Chris Olave

With the trade for Carson Wentz sorting out the Commanders immediate need for a quarterback, attention turns to trying to build around Wentz to give him the best possible chance to succeed. One way of doing that would be to draft a wide receiver in the first round, so over the next few days I’ll be putting out some posts breaking down some of the top receivers in this year's draft class. Ohio State has two of the top five receiver prospects in this class, so I’ll start there and specifically with Chris Olave.

The thing that stands out immediately with Olave is his speed and deep threat ability. He can glide down the field in a controlled manner that many defenders just can’t keep up with and on top of that, he always has an extra gear to go to if needed. He has a tremendous ability to turn up the throttle and accelerate past defenders when they thought he was already at top speed.

This play was called back for a holding penalty on the offensive line, but that’s irrelevant to Olave’s route. He lines up to the left of the formation, just inside the numbers. He runs a deep post but from that position, he has room to sell a fake outside towards the numbers in order to create even more space inside for the deep post. The corner plays off so Olave has a free release off the snap, which he makes the most of. He bursts off the line and quickly eats up the gap between himself and the defender. The defender opens his hips to turn and run, so Olave smartly works his route into the defender’s blind spot as he sells a fake outside. 

This forces the defender to widen as he gains depth without fully knowing exactly where Olave is going. This opens up the space in the middle of the field for the post route. At that point, Olave sticks his foot in the ground and finds his second gear, suddenly accelerating towards the middle of the field. The defender does his best to try and run with him, but he can’t catch up to that extra gear and Olave breezes by him for a deep touchdown. 

There’s a lot of positives to take out of that play, from the clever route running to work into the defender’s blind spot and create space to the pacing of his route enabling him to accelerate past the defender. Those are excellent traits for a deep threat receiver to have. Another key trait in that regard is ball skills, meaning the ability to track the flight of the ball, adjust the route to match the trajectory of the throw and then obviously having the hands to make the catch. Fortunately, Olave has all of those skills too.

This time, Olave works in the slot to the right of the formation. The defense boldly plays with no safety help at all, leaving Olave in pure man coverage. Olave uses a solid release, slowly stepping outside to square up the defender before suddenly bursting inside and getting vertical. The defender struggles to stay with Olave, who bends his route back outside to sell a fake to the corner before breaking inside on the post. He has the defender beaten comfortably by a yard or two, but the throw from the quarterback isn’t the best. Instead of being thrown out in front of Olave for him to run on to, it’s thrown relatively flat at Olave, forcing him to slow down and adjust. Olave does a terrific job tracking the ball and adjusting back to the flight of it, catching it behind the back of the defender to complete the touchdown.

All of these traits combined make Olave a terrific deep threat, probably the best pure deep threat in this draft class. That on its own is very promising and desirable but Olave is more than that. He understands how to use his deep threat to work routes off the vertical route tree.

On this play, Ohio State run a play-action bootleg with the quarterback rolling out to the right side. Olave aligns to the right of the formation and runs a comeback route, one of the toughest routes for a cornerback to defend when working against a deep threat like Olave. Olave anticipates a jam at the line of scrimmage but doesn’t get it as he releases outside. He quickly gets a step on the defender with pure speed and uses a very savvy move. He raises his hand to the quarterback, signaling he’s open and wants the ball. The trailing defender spots this and instantly assumes the ball is coming, so he turns his head inside to try and locate the ball in the air. Crucially, this causes the defender to take his eyes off Olave, who then sharply breaks off the route and creates yards of separation as the defender continues on running. Olave then does a nice job getting himself under control on a throw to the sideline, getting both of his feet down inbounds before stretching to make the catch away from his body.

Another route that works well off the vertical threat is a hitch or curl route. 

Here we see Olave again working to the right of the formation. The corner lines up close to the line of scrimmage but not quite in press coverage. Just before the snap, he bails out into off coverage with his hips opened towards the middle of the field. Olave uses this positioning to his advantage, widening his route to work in the defender’s blind spot. His speed enables him to close the gap quickly and step on the toes of the defender, convincing the defender Olave is running deep. He then breaks off his route sharply again, coming back to the ball to make the catch with yards of separation as the defender takes longer to slow down and change direction. 

Those curls and hitch routes remind me of when Washington had DeSean Jackson for a few years. Jackson is probably the best deep threat in NFL history, so Olave has a long way to go to be compared to him, but because of Jackson’s deep threat, he was almost always open on those hitches and curls for a free chunk of yards. Olave is similar in that regard. His deep threat is legitimately scary to defenses and he knows it, so he understands how to use that threat of working vertically to open up other routes.

On this play, Olave is tasked with running an out route from a tight split against off coverage. An out route against off coverage can be dangerous because a defender playing off coverage has vision on the quarterback and can potentially drive down and undercut any long throws to the sideline. However, Olave’s route takes that problem out of the equation altogether. Olave initially widens his route for his first few steps, forcing the defender to widen with him. Olave then works back vertically, forcing the defender to switch from widening to squaring up and then to be prepared to turn and run vertically.  Olave takes one final jab step vertically, which causes the defender to open his hips inside just slightly, at which point Olave breaks outside. The defender has to adjust his feet and his hips in order to break back outside and trail Olave, meaning there’s plenty of time and space for the quarterback to deliver his throw. 

With all of this to his game, Olave is ready made to step in and be a legitimate deep threat in the NFL from day one. He can run the vertical routes well, but also the routes that work off those vertical routes to help pick up smaller chunks. But he has more to his game than that too. He has a strong understanding of how to be a friendly target to the quarterback. I mentioned earlier how he has the ability to find an extra gear to help accelerate past defenders deep, but he’s also smart enough to know when to throttle down his speed and extend his periods in holes in coverage.

This is another bootleg play, but this time Olave aligns on the back side of the bootleg and is tasked with running a crossing route as the late developing intermediate option. Olave initially works quite quickly across the middle, but then spots a clear vacant space in the middle of the field. Instead of just continuing on his path towards the sideline at full speed and running into coverage, Olave throttles down and extends his stay in the vacated space. The quarterback feels pressured to continue rolling towards the sideline and Olave mirrors the movement, but keeps at a slower pace to stay in the hole in coverage. The quarterback eventually finds him before the deep safety is able to drive down on the route.

Route pacing isn’t something that all receivers do well. A lot of young receivers entering the league look to run each route as fast as they possibly can, thinking the league is all about playing fast. But Olave has the advanced ability to pace his routes nicely, giving himself the ability to go up a gear when needed, but also throttle down when that suits the play at hand. 

Another way Olave is quarterback friendly is his ability to make himself available when plays breakdown. Quarterbacks will often have to go off-script in the NFL when pressure arrives and Olave is excellent at going off-script with the quarterback and finding a way to make himself available.

Here, Olave aligns to the right of the formation and runs a simple curl route. The defense shows a quarters coverage look and both the cornerback and safety to Olave’s side of the field end up bracketing his route. The quarterback initially looks to Olave but spots the safety sitting on his route and decides to look elsewhere. He eventually begins to scramble to this right and Olave sees it the whole way. He begins to run back towards the ball, but then stops and turns back vertical. He slips past the cornerback and then bends his path towards the sideline.

The safety does a nice job staying with him, so Olave then adjusts his path again back towards the ball and the quarterback makes the throw. Olave does an outstanding job showing his leaping ability, going up and high-pointing the football before the safety has any chance of making a play on the ball. He then somehow manages to get a foot down inbounds to complete the catch before being forced out of bounds.

Olave is a superbly talented receiver that should be an impactful deep threat from day one in the NFL, but also has more strings to his bow than just running deep. From the Washington Commanders perspective, the team clearly wants to be more vertical and explosive in the passing game. Terry McLaurin is excellent at that and Curtis Samuel provides plenty of speed when healthy too. Dyami Brown was seen as a deep threat coming out of college last year and while he didn’t quite have the impact expected of him in his rookie year, he still showed flashes of what he can become.

With that being said, adding Olave opposite of McLaurin and moving Samuel into the slot would give Carson Wentz an incredibly explosive set of receivers to attack down the field with. The Commanders could perhaps perfer a slightly bigger frame to complement the current receiver group, but if wide receiver is on the table at 11, Olave would be an incredibly enticing option in my opinion.