When 25-year-old receiver Chris Olave caught six passes for 98 yards against New England and followed with 98 more and two touchdowns in Chicago, it wasn't the numbers that hit him hardest — it was a feeling he needed badly.

Olave felt normal.

As a rookie with the New Orleans Saints in 2022, he caught five passes for 80 yards and followed with nine catches for 147 yards in weeks 2 and 3. In the first two games of '23, he caught eight passes for 112 yards and six for 86 yards, then added eight more catches for 104 yards in week 3. And in '23 he totaled 12 catches for 233 yards in weeks 12 and 13. But lately, his confidence had slipped.

"Of course, you feel like yourself in practice because you're not really getting hit," he said. "But I'd say (in weeks 3 or 4), I felt like myself again

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