NFL Breakout Candidates 2024: Bills WR Khalil Shakir

Khalil Shakir is set for an intriguing season in 2024. With Buffalo ending their relationship with Stefon Diggs, sending him to Houston while paying most of his salary, there are now significant questions about the group of receivers around Josh Allen. When you see reports out of OTAs saying Chase Claypool has been the most consistent guy of the groups, there’s definitely reason to be concerned.

Be that as it may, the Buffalo Bills have a player on the roster who is about to step into a more prominent role and benefit from the lack of clarity in terms of a pecking order. Khalil Shakir was unfortunate to be part of a wide receiver class in 2022 that saw eight guys selected in the top 18 picks but even beyond that there was so much talent available, that he fell to the fifth round.

That’s despite racking up over 3,000 total yards and 22 touchdowns over his final three seasons at Boise State. With that kind of low capital invested in him while having Diggs, Gabe Davis, Isaiah McKenzie and Jamison Crowder, it was always tough for the then-rookie to see the field a whole lot.

He only played 275 snaps across 14 games that year, catching half of his 20 targets for 161 yards and one touchdown. Shakir was off to another slow start last season, not cracking 20 offensive snaps since week six or seeing more than one target until the ensuing game.

Yet, with neither Trent Sherfield nor Deonte Harty establishing themselves as meaningful contributors and Dawson Knox getting injured midway through the year leading to the Bills becoming more 11 personnel-centric, a window opened for the second-year man to prove himself.

In the nine contests in which he played at least 50% of offensive snaps, Shakir caught 31 of 35 targets coming his way for 536 yards (and one touchdown). That would project to 59 catches for 1,012 yards across a 17-game season. I believe he could reach those marks or at least come close to him as a more central piece of their passing game this year.

Why Bills WR Khalil Shakir could break out in the 2024 NFL season

While he looked fairly small next to Gabe Davis and the two tight-ends for Buffalo, Khalil Shakir is actually a solid six foot flat and 190 pounds. So while he’s mainly operated on the inside so far in his career, he has displayed the propensity to line up in multiple spots. His suddenness to elude contact and stay on schedule with deeper-breaking routes stood out to me on multiple occasions.

Shakir can kind of walk into or stutter before hitting the gas to blow by nickel defenders on inside fades. This guy just glides through speed cuts on digs, flat posts, etc. and I love the way he creates separation when breaking out to the sideline with an extended drive-step and at times throwing in a slight shoulder-fake.

He adds an extra pair of steps or hesitates to create angles to defeat the leverage of safeties who can wall him off, instead of fighting through contact, but not to where he doesn’t get to his spots with appropriate timing. Shakir did a lot of his damage out of the slot this past season, working up to depth and settling down in open windows vs. zone coverage.

His feel for open space and sliding towards it once the timing of the route has passed is excellent. He also aggressively works back down towards his quarterback, whether he’s snapping off stuff with defenders trying to close to gap to him or just helping out Josh Allen later in the play clock.

In one of the more impressive statistical feats I stumbled upon, Shakir’s yards per route run actually increased from 1.47 to 1.75, despite his average depth of target being nearly cut in half (down to 7.4). That speaks to his ability to be where he’s expected and find openings if they aren’t there initially.

Also read: NFL Breakout Candidates 2024: Bengals RB Chase Brown, Raiders RB Zamir White

Evaluating Shakir at Boise State, he would alligator-arm or try to one-hand the catch a little too much for my taste. Yet, he’s been uber-dependable with securing passes so far as a pro and only dropped one of 50 catchable targets this past year.

Furthermore, he’s dealt well with contact with the ball arriving there. Generally, he displays great concentration tracking passes, and so far, he’s hauled in five of eight contested targets coming his way. Specifically, when he’s flying up the seams and there’s a corner falling off to disrupt the catch-point or a linebacker on his heels trying to carry the vertical push, he doesn’t lose focus in those moments.

Yet, what really intrigued me about this kid in college was what he could provide once the ball was actually in his hands. Khalil Shakir runs through the catch and he’s always had that quality of gaining speed once he’s secured the catch seemingly.

He’s super slippery to wiggle past defenders in space, and even when they do get hands on him, he reduces that surface area to where he can slide forward that extra yard or two. He’s just not going to straight-arm or truck a safety at any point necessarily, but his momentum constantly carries him up the field, slide or spin off hits.

That start-stop ability can also be utilized to great effect in order to navigate around blockers in the screen game. In 2023, he accounted for 32 first downs despite only 13 of his catches coming 10+ yards down the field, and he forced six missed tackles.

In terms of blocking, Khalil Shakir does a good job of sliding in front of defenders and forcing them to go through him, giving you an honest effort. However, that’s where the lack of size does show up with opponents setting the tone at contact in those interactions typically.

So you’re best served to use his lateral quicks to shield DBs on perimeter runs if you have him close to the point of attack. Putting him at the tip of a bunch or stack with a defender up close in press especially can throw him off in that capacity.

Transitioning to Khalil Shakir’s potential usage, I do believe Curtis Samuel will be more of that gadget type that they use on fly sweeps and as eye candy for the defense. But Shakir has officially only carried the ball once so far in his pro career.

Meanwhile, the departure of Stefon Diggs opens up a role that would allow the third-year man to be motioned across the formation and attack from different alignments. That means he can be that off-set Z, motion out of bunch sets to level the defense and force them to declare while giving Shakir room to operate.

His slot rate increased from 61.3% as a rookie to 76.8% this past season. But even though that granted him a lot of free releases, he was fairly static in terms of the routes he could run based on alignments.

Second-year tight-end Dalton Kincaid is an obvious candidate for targets, but the difference in catches between him and Stefon Diggs as the number one receiving option and Gabe Davis at number three last season was nearly the same already.

They’ve already stated that 33rd overall pick Keon Coleman (Florida State) will primarily play the X. Taking out 2021 when he didn’t even log 100 snaps due to injury, Samuel has played at least 70% on the inside in his three previous seasons. So while they could be somewhat interchangeable, a flanker that moves around a lot sounds like a pretty clear definition for Khalil Shakir.