Can Khalil Shakir Take Another Step in Fantasy Football?

Khalil Shakir quietly turned in one of the more efficient seasons among wide receivers in 2024, emerging as a key piece of the Bills’ passing attack despite working primarily out of the slot and sharing the field with a revolving door of pass-catchers. And yet, despite leading the team in nearly every receiving category, his role still felt... conditional.

Now entering Year 4, the question isn't whether Shakir can play; it’s whether he’ll be given enough of a role to produce in fantasy. With Buffalo once again tinkering around the margins of their receiver room and leaning into a run-heavy identity, is there room for Shakir to take another step forward? Let’s take a look at how he got here and whether that next step is in the cards.

Click here for more 2025 Player Profiles!

DraftKings is giving ALL customers a can't-miss offer for Best Ball: Draft One, Get One! Enter a lineup in the $15 Million Best Ball Contest for just $20, and you'll score another Best Ball ticket to play FREE for a share of $15 million—giving you a second shot to win big!

Khalil Shakir’s Career

Coming out of Boise State in the 2022 NFL Draft, Khalil Shakir was looked at as a slot option and return specialist when selected in the fifth round by the Buffalo Bills. He was used sparingly as each during his rookie season, running 141 routes (10-161-1) while returning 13 punts, but saw significant bumps during his sophomore season. 2023 would mark his mini-breakout, notching a few fantasy-worthy performances as third fiddle behind Stefon Diggs and preferred deep-ball target, Gabe Davis.

A spike in Year 3 usage was pretty easy to predict, considering the state of the wide receiver room heading into 2024, but the massive efficiency came as a bit of a shock. Diggs, Davis, Trent Sherfield, Deonte Harty, and basically everyone else who logged time in the wide receiver room were out of town, replaced by Mack Hollins, Curtis Samuel, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and rookie Keon Coleman.

Because of that barren pass-catching group, it was bandied about that tight end Dalton Kincaid could lead this team in targets last year. Not only were we (I) off the mark, but Shakir became the engine of this passing attack, earning 0.27 targets per route run (18th-highest mark among qualifying WRs) and earning 0.14 first downs per route run (10th-highest) when filtering for only third and fourth down plays. The reason that filter is important is that Shakir still didn’t see much of the field in 2-WR sets, despite leading the team in every receiving category. His 72.9% slot rate fell right in line with his career average, and per Sports Info Solutions’ numbers, he saw the field on only 42 of a possible 389 snaps with less than three wide receivers in the formation.

Regardless, Shakir saw eight games (all from Weeks 7-15) in which he earned at least seven targets as the team consistently got the ball into his hands to take advantage of his short-area quickness.

The Bills' Offense in 2025

The Bills are looking to stay the course after their sixth-straight playoff berth, and this will be offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s second full season at the helm since taking over during midseason of 2023. Brady slowed the pace of the offense a little bit in neutral situations last year, as the team dropped from a 9.9% no-huddle rate (9th) in 2022-23 to 6.8% (14th), and their seconds/snap dropped from 26.6 (7th) to 27.4 (11th). However, the larger shift occurred in their reliance on the ground game, as their pass rate in neutral situations dropped to 55.1% (21st) from 58.1% (10th) in the preceding two seasons.

While we’d prefer the ball to move through the air to get more guys involved for fantasy, the team set a new franchise record by scoring 525 points, leading the league in rushing touchdowns, and trailing only the Detroit Lions in total offense. So, the odds that they’re looking to flip the script and add a ton more dropbacks to Josh Allen’s plate seem slim.

The personnel moves the Bills made this offseason don’t hint toward a change either. While adding replacement-level names to the wide receiver room, most of this 2025 Draft Class was concentrated on the defensive side of the ball. Their first five picks, to be exact, with fifth-round blocking tight end Jackson Hawes breaking the defensive run.

The silver lining here is that the Bills are projected to lead the league in points scored according to implied team totals across the season, so if we can get a little regression from their outlandish rushing touchdowns, maybe more of those will come via Allen’s arm.

Projecting the Bills' Pass-Catchers in Fantasy

Like last season, Buffalo is likely going to be spreading the ball around. The real question is: can Khalil Shakir’s pie of the pie get a little bigger? It’s certainly a possibility.

As we can see from his Reception Perception profile, Shakir’s route tree was still a bit limited despite his Year 3 success. We’re not likely to see him lining up as an X receiver and blazing down the sideline for go balls with any sort of consistency. Still, as Matt Harmon points out, he’s been quite successful on intermediate routes like curls and digs, yet is probably not utilized enough in that area of the field.

Shakir has already proven himself as an effective yards-after-catch (8.0 YAC/rec, t-5th-highest) centerpiece for this team, but what if some of those catches came just a little further down the field? There’s certainly not a lot on this depth chart that is holding him back from taking another step. We should see more out of Keon Coleman as he heads into his sophomore year, and Joshua Palmer proved to be a good ancillary piece with the Chargers, but the team doesn’t have any incentive to be showcasing Curtis Samuel, Elijah Moore, or Laviska Shenault any more than they have to.

Overall, Shakir has room to build an even higher floor here in 2025, and if his end zone usage grows at all (only 6% of the team’s 31 end zone targets last year), maybe we can wiggle a ceiling case out of him as well. As it stands, Shakir should be considered a WR3 with particular strength in full-PPR leagues. Coleman and Palmer are closer to dart-throw/late-round stacking range, while Dalton Kincaid will be a touchdown-dependent fringe TE1/2, particularly if they pull back the reins on rushing inside the five.

Bottom Line

• The competition for targets in the Buffalo Bills offense isn’t any stronger than it was last year, which should clear the way for Khalil Shakir to lead the team once again.
• Any sort of touchdown regression from the rushing attack should lead to more scoring opportunities for the pass-catching group, but we’re going to need to see an expansion of Shakir’s usage before we can be certain he will be one of the beneficiaries.
• According to current Underdog ADP, Shakir is coming off the boards as the WR45 near the end of the seventh round. That is almost assuredly not going to be the case in typical redraft leagues, where the WR45 should be going a round (or two, or three) later. He profiles as a solid contributor to fantasy squads as a WR3/4, and it’s almost impossible to imagine him not being a floor play all season long.