With first-round pick Jordyn Tyson (hamstring) on IR and missing at the least first four games of the season, Devaughn Vele is likely to serve as the Saints’ No. 2 receiver behind Chris Olave to begin the year. Vele is widely available in most fantasy football leagues, but should we be considering him as a potential add with the season quickly approaching?
Devaughn Vele Fantasy Outlook
A shoulder injury forced Vele to miss the final three games of last season, but prior to this, he and quarterback Tyler Shough were starting to build a solid connection.
In Vele’s final five games of the season, the 6-foot-5 receiver saw a target on 16% of his routes, running a route on 84% of Shough’s dropbacks. This route rate ranked second only to Chris Olave for the Saints during this span. Vele garnered some valuable targets, seeing five targets over 20 yards and two red-zone targets.
For fantasy purposes, Vele had two strong performances during this five-game run, going off for 23.3 FPTS vs. the Dolphins and posting 11.9 FPTS vs. the Panthers in the game in which he got injured. But he scored single-digit points in the three other games.
With Tyson sidelined for the first month of the season and possibly more – he has suffered four hamstring injuries since the start of 2025 – Vele should run a route on most of Shough’s dropbacks and command targets at a solid rate.
After a great ending to his rookie season, Shough is a candidate to improve in his second season and Vele certainly could be one of the main beneficiaries. Especially in the first two games of the season, when the Saints visit the Lions and the Ravens, New Orleans may be forced to air it out as underdogs. Vele could be busy.
Given Vele only scored 0.15 FPTS per snap last season and we only have about 4.5 games of he and Shough playing together, our expectations do need to be tempered. Still, Vele averaging close to double-digit FPTS per game until Tyson returns is a possibility, so picking Vele up is a viable move if your roster is thin at receiver.
