The New Orleans Saints are off to an abysmal start, losing their first four games of the season. The longer it takes the Saints to find their first win, the more the reality of this being another lost season will set in. If the franchise comes to that realization ahead of the November 4 trade deadline, they could be sellers at the deadline. First on the trade block could be the duo of Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed.
Despite New Orleans’ winless record, it has several talented players who could help contending teams. Matt Verderame named a hand full of those players in a recent Sports Illustrated piece, highlighting one trade every team should make before the deadline.
If all these trade ideas happened, New Orleans would be left with a decimated wide receiver room, because Verderame had Olave going to the Green Bay Packers and Shaheed being sent to the Houston Texans.
Saints send away top two receivers in trade proposal piece
For Olave, New Orleans would receive a second-round pick in this proposal, and for Shaheed, the team would get back a conditional fifth-round pick. While these deals would be great for Green Bay and Houston, it’d be a terrible idea for the Saints. Yes, New Orleans is struggling, but it would be a bad idea to get significantly worse.
Olave and Shaheed are the Saints’ top two receivers, and have been for the last couple of years. On the season, Olave has 26 receptions for 185 yards and a touchdown, and Shaheed has 18 catches for 174 yards and a score. New Orleans isn’t winning with them, and both are nearing the ends of their contract, but it would still be bad for the team to offload them ahead of this season’s deadline.
That would mean the Saints are giving up on keeping them around long term, and it will also hurt the development of New Orleans’ young quarterbacks. All QBs need a good offensive line and pass catchers, so it’d be foolish for the Saints to get rid of their two best wide receivers.