New Orleans Saints wide receiver Chris Olave.
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Highly touted Dallas Cowboys rookie safety Caleb Downs bit the dust for, perhaps, the first time in his football career on Tuesday.
The Cowboys hosted the New Orleans Saints in a joint practice ahead of their preseason matchup on Friday (8 p.m. ET). Downs guarded Saints wide receiver Chris Olave for much of practice. The 2025 second-team All-Pro didn’t go easy on his fellow Ohio State Buckeye alum; he gave him his welcome-to-the-NFL moment.
How Chris Olave gave Caleb Downs his welcome-to-the-NFL moment
Olave and company cooked the Cowboys defense throughout practice. Many of his best reps came against Downs.
During the team period, Saints second-year quarterback Tyler Shough fired a deep pass to Olave on the sideline while Downs blanketed him. The WR then jumped over the safety, grabbing the pass. Olave appeared to bobble the ball as he hit the ground, but the official still ruled it a completion. You be the judge.
— NOF (@nofnetwork) August 18, 2026
There were no questions about whether Olave caught a touchdown pass against Downs during red-zone work. The WR zoomed past the safety and maintained control after he caught him and tried to knock the ball out.
— NOF (@nofnetwork) August 18, 2026
They don’t keep scorecards for individual matchups in practice, but if they did, the final tally would give Olave a clear win.
Now, for those who may be wondering if this signals Downs could be a bust, don’t be. Many scouts consider Downs, the 11th pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, a generational prospect, and some compared him to Pro Football Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed during the predraft process. He’s already been living up to some of the hype during the offseason program, drawing rave reviews.
“[Downs] is what we thought,” Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said in May. “The person, elite. The intelligence, elite.”
All rookies, however, experience growing pains. This helps them realize they can’t get away with some of the things they did in college, especially when facing stars like Olave, who ranked eighth in the NFL in receiving yards (1,163) last season.
Clark Dalton is a 2022 journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He gained experience in sports media over the past seven years — from live broadcasting and creating short films to podcasting and producing. In college, he wrote for The Daily Texan. He loves sports and enjoys hiking, kayaking and camping.
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