Thursday Night Fantasy Football Takeaways: Pump the Brakes on Bills’ Khalil Shakir
The week 8 Thursday night game between the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers played out how many people expected it to. The Bucs kept things fairly close throughout, but the Bills were in control most of the way and ended up with the win.
Now that the game is in the books, it’s time to check out some of the top performers and start to identify any potential waiver wire targets going into week 9.
Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield played pretty well against a top-end defense, so he should get some waiver wire love next week. Buffalo rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid put together another good showing and is likely going to be one of the hottest waiver wire names, so we’ll save that content for a later day. The guy I want to focus on is Bills’ receiver Khalil Shakir.
The second-year wideout had a breakout game, which will make him a waiver wire possibility next week in standard leagues, but I’m writing to tell you to stay away from Shakir and focus your attention elsewhere. Let me tell you why.
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Shakir’s Outing
Shakir started for Buffalo and easily had his best game of the season. Shakir was targeted six times, making six catches for 92 yards. He had a long reception of 30 yards.
It was arguably his best game ever, rivaling a three-catch, 75-yard, one-touchdown performance from October of last season.
Shakir’s strong showing also came with increased playing time, as he was on the field for 45 offensive snaps, which was 65% of the team’s total.
He tallied the most receiving yards in the contest despite being targeted less than five players, including three on his own team.
The Wideout’s Season/Career Numbers
Shakir has now been involved in back-to-back weeks. He caught all four of his targets in week 7, turning those into 35 yards.
Before that game, Shakir was an afterthought in the Bills’ offense. He tallied one catch in four of the first six games, and had zero grabs in the other two. Shakir wasn’t targeted in the opener and then had just one target the next five weeks. His lone touchdown came in week 2.
As mentioned before, Shakir also played a lot more snaps than usual. His season high coming into the Thursday night game was 24, which he did in weeks 6 and 7. He was under 20 snaps from weeks 2-5 and had only seven snaps in the opener.
Why You Should Stay Away From Shakir
Some might look at the last two weeks and think Shakir is starting to emerge as a potential third option in the passing game behind Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis, but his career numbers say this was a one-week fluke.
The 75-yard performance from last year that I referenced earlier was the only other time in Shakir’s career that he had over 35 receiving yards. He’d never been targeted more than five times in a contest and he never had five or more grabs until Thursday.
It’s hard not to want to immediately scoop up Shakir after the strong week 8 showing, one because it was a good fantasy outing and two because he’s got Josh Allen throwing him the ball. But I would like to see at least one more week of production before thinking about seriously adding Shakir.
Sure, in deeper leagues, Shakir should and will be a hot waiver wire commodity, but in standard leagues, you want to focus your waiver wire priority on guys who can consistently help your team, and Shakir hasn’t shown the ability to do that in his two years in the league.
Thursday was a step in the right direction, but I need another week of similar production to be convinced. Diggs and Davis are going to dominate the targets every week, and running backs James Cook and Latavius Murray are also going to soak up a ton of touches. Add in that Kincaid produced for a second straight week and that’s a lot of mouths to feed before Shakir on a weekly basis.
Shakir is worth stashing in deeper leagues in case of an injury to one of the guys I just mentioned, but I’d leave him near the bottom of my waiver wire priority going into week 9 in standard leagues. I’m sure we’ll cover Shakir a bit in a few stories early next week, so be sure to check back to figure out the guys you might be prioritizing instead of him.
