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Michael Thomas appeared in three games this season and still led the Saints in contested catches.

Think about that for a second. New Orleans played 1,050 snaps on offense this season, 914 without Thomas, and the wide receiver still managed to catch more contested passes than anyone else on the team.

That is a problem. New Orleans scored touchdowns on 52% of its trips to the red zone, which ranked 21st overall in the NFL. If you’re looking for reasons between wins and losses, this is a big one. And it’s why finding this type of player is going to be among the top priorities for GM Mickey Loomis since it looks like Thomas’ reworked contract assures his release in March.

At about midway through the season, it started to look like Chris Olave was emerging as someone who could go up and make a contested play. The rookie receiver wasn’t nearly where he needed to be, but he showed body control and an ability to snatch the ball away from defenders. He made two of those plays against Carolina, two against Minnesota, another one against Seattle and added one more each against Las Vegas and Pittsburgh.

CHRIS OLAVE WHAT A GRAB.@Saints still in it with 11 seconds to go...📺: #MINvsNO on @NFLNetwork📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/rvQRHI7Cq9 pic.twitter.com/SYzkMDmOCt— NFL (@NFL) October 2, 2022

But then things went sideways, and Olave started to slide. The star rookie's struggles in this area were a near-weekly staple down the stretch, and it cost New Orleans on the scoreboard. After the season finale against Carolina, coach Dennis Allen noted that the wide receiver needed to add a bit of playing strength, a sentiment Olave echoed.

Olave told NewOrleans.Football that he is going home to San Diego for the offseason and plans to attack his weaknesses by working out by himself. He said he gets his best work done that way.

Scoring contested catches is an incredibly arbitrary measure. What looks like one to one person might not look like one to another. But the fact is, if you watch all of Thomas’ targets from this season, you’re going to come out of it thinking that he had around eight or nine contested catches. He made life easy for his quarterbacks. You throw him the ball with someone around, he’s going to complete the play. There isn’t much to think about.

Olave finished a close second with somewhere around seven contested catches. Then the list drops all the way down to guys with three or four; couple more had one, and then the list ends. New Orleans wasn’t getting much help on those plays because there weren’t a lot of guys who could help the quarterback.

How important was Thomas? Jameis Winston completed around 15 contested passes on around 25 attempts during his three starts, while Andy Dalton finished with something around 18-20 on approximately 60 attempts. Winston not only tried more, he completed more. Part of that is probably the makeup and DNA of both quarterbacks, but it’s not a fair comparison since Thomas only played alongside one of the passers.

Now, New Orleans needs to find a way to make it a fair comparison moving forward by acquiring a wide receiver who can catch a slant in traffic. Offense just doesn’t need to be as hard as the Saints make it look last season. Drew Brees talked to NewOrleans.Football earlier this year about how much help it is having someone like Thomas around.

“When I think about my career there, like Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, Michael Thomas. Those three guys, when you threw balls in traffic, they just had a knack for, No. 1, knowing where the ball was gonna be thrown, so they get themselves in position to catch the ball where they know it’s gonna be thrown,” Brees said. “And not only catch it, but shield a defender and protect the throw. Because, look, there were plenty of throws I made where if me and the receiver are not on the same page, the ball gets picked. And it probably looks like a really bad pick, like, ‘Why the heck would you throw that? The dude’s covered.’ Or, ‘Man, there’s a lot of bodies there.’ But you almost just zero in. And I know, ‘If I throw it here, even if he doesn’t make it, he’ll protect the throw. He’ll knock it down.’ It’s kind of like ‘him or nobody.’ It’s a ‘him-or-nobody throw.’ But yeah, there’s an art to it — and there’s a big factor.”

There Saints have some solid pieces on offense. Olave, Rashid Shaheed, Juwan Johnson, Alvin Kamara and Taysom Hill provide a good foundation, provided the team finds a quarterback who can get them the ball. But that quarterback also has to have someone he can count on to make tough plays.