… so far! Important, that bit. But not important enough to make it into the title. Because, really, what Shakir is doing is truly remarkable.
And this matters for Buffalo right now. Shakir’s team value (more on that later) is the best in the league among wideouts by a long-shot. Having the trust of now-veteran QB Josh Allen is going to be paramount to his DFS and season-long fantasy value going forward. Allen relies on Shakir. How could he not?
Real quick, some context on how it started: The Bills selected Khalil Shakir in the fifth round of the 2022 NFL Draft with the 148th overall pick. Shakir had been a receiver at Boise State, where he was known for his versatility across personnel formations, route-running excellence, and strong hands.
Why was Shakir so under everyone’s fantasy radar?
Unfortunately, we can probably blame Ken Dorsey and the personnel turnover at Offensive Coordinator in 2023 for that. Even after Joe Brady took over, the Bills were seeking an identity, not executing one at a high level. They were, more or less, trying that whole run game thing, finicky such that it is.
Shakir ended last season with ten catches for 161 yards with one touchdown in 14 games played. Five of those catches, 75 of those yards, and the entire one touchdown came in Week 5 against the Steelers. But, even then, Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis, and Dalton Kincaid were clearly ahead of Shakir in the receiver room. Other than a big 31-yard catch in the Bills’ Wild Card Game victory over the Dolphins, Shakir had a relatively quiet rookie season.
And yet, here was the telling stat: Shakir led all Bills receivers in receiving yards over expected (RecYOE) on open targets in 2023 (+122).
Also, if you were paying attention, you saw that Joe Brady was experimenting with shifting Shakir all over the field in the 2023 season. 28% of Shakir’s snaps were in the left slot, and 34% were in the right slot. He also lined up in the backfield for 4% of his snaps, and spent 25% lined up out wide.
Did everyone hear Dan Orlovsky mention on the broadcast last night—this would have been sometime in the third quarter—that he couldn’t think of a single Bills offensive snap during which there wasn’t some kind of pre-snap motion? Lots of talk about Joe Brady being in his bag? Shakir was a massive part of that last night.
The money stat
So not only is Shakir giving Josh Allen and Joe Brady pre-snap insights into what the opponents called for their defensive play. Shakir is also catching passes with staggering efficiency. Since last year, Shakir has caught 53 of his last 59 targets. That’s good for 89.8%. That’s unheard of.
And, truly—that’s not the money stat. I posted this on my X handle, @dansby_edits, last night during the game. I’ll let it do the talking:
EPA is a lot like WAR for football. It’s as close to an aggregated stat that represents a player’s added team value that NFL Next Gen Stats has metricized. Every time he’s been targeted, imagine a 1.62 getting hung on the scoreboard.
All to say: Indeed! Khalil Shakir is the most valuable wide receiver in football through the first three weeks of the NFL season. And it’s not all that close whatsoever, as you can see above.
Fantasy outlook
I’ve written about Shakir’s fantasy outlook at length for DKNetwork the past few weeks. But, most recently, I featured him in last week’s air yards deep dive/High-Flying Hangar column, in which I break down Shakir’s EPA/tgt a bit more.
But, the bottom line: you have to put some feelers out to see if you can still get this guy at a WR2/WR3 price. I think he’ll end the year as a solid WR2 in that Buffalo offense, but he’s going to be a PPR machine week-in-and-week-out.
Set your DraftKings fantasy football lineups here: NFL $3.25M Fantasy Football Millionaire [$1M to 1st].
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